Jordan king links Syria border opening to better security

Jordan’s King Abdullah II says his country’s border with Syria would only reopen “when the right security conditions materialize on the ground.”

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab & agencies

14 September, 2017

Jordan has signalled it may soon reopen its borders with Syria [Getty]

Jordan’s King Abdullah II says he is “deeply concerned” with the situation in southern Syria and that his country’s border with Syria would only reopen “when the right security conditions materialize on the ground.”

The monarch told the state news agency Petra in an interview published Thursday that the military campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria “could push it south toward Jordan” and that Jordan’s top priority is to protect its border.

The king also says that a cease-fire for southwest Syria, brokered in July by Jordan, Russia and the US, could be replicated elsewhere in Syria.

Russia proposes creating “de-escalation zones” in several areas of Syria. Russia’s foreign minister met with Abdullah in Jordan this week to discuss the requirements for such a zone in southern Syria.

The de-escalation zone was set up as reports emerged several thousand Syrians stranded on the border with Jordan have fled one makeshift camp for another, running from shelling and nearby fighting between Syrian rebels and government forces.

A Jordanian official confirmed that residents of Hadalat camp in the remote desert of southeastern Syria "were moved."

Jordan closed the border formally in 2016, after an Islamic State car bomb launched from near Rukban killed seven Jordanian border guards.

Mohammed al-Adnan, a spokesman for the Tribal Army, a Jordan-backed Syrian militia, said Tuesday that all civilians had left Hadalat and that only some armed men remained there.

"If the people here at the Jordanian border don't die from bombs, they will die from hunger and thirst," he said, referring to the dire conditions in isolated Rukban, which is now struggling to absorb several thousand more people.

The UN refugee agency's attempts to deliver aid to the border camps from Jordan have been disrupted frequently since the 2016 border closure.

The agency's Jordan office said on Tuesday that it will keep trying to deliver aid, but did not say how this might work at a time when front lines in the area are shifting.