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Jordan’s voice on the global stage

Sep 25,2019 - Last updated at Sep 25,2019

His Majesty King Abdullah delivered Jordan’s address at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly (GA) on day one of the session, when the seats are full and the audience is most attentive.

 The King’s first words were about the role and importance of the annual GA meetings, which are critical in dealing with crises and challenges across the globe and offering new opportunities to confront them, with new initiatives and ideas. 

The GA meetings, the King summed up, are an occasion for seizing on new opportunities for joint international actions. The very UN, the King noted, was conceived in the first place as a venue to address conflicts and find ways to solve them. 

Recently, the King noted, the international community has witnessed an alarming surge in the number of people seeking refuge in foreign countries because of the increased number of armed conflicts. This is the newest global challenge that the international community has had to confront. Jordan has shouldered more than its share of the problem by providing shelter to one and a half million Syrian refugees who became part of the population landscape of the Kingdom. 

As can be expected, the Palestinian conflict figured highly in the King’s speech, after he reminded his audience that 40 years ago his late father King Hussein warned about the dangers and consequences of occupation at the GA session of that year. 

No one, the King warned, can forever deny the Palestinians their birthright and inalienable right to have their own state on their own soil. That’s why, His Majesty added, Jordan tries to alleviate Palestinian sufferings and the denial of their rights by protecting their rights and rejecting all attempts by Israel to alter the status of their lands. 

In the same vein, the King, as the Hashemite Custodian over the Muslim and Christian holy places in East Jerusalem, said that safeguarding Palestinian rights to their lands is part and parcel of Jordan’s resolve. 

Yet, the King urged the international community to stand by his custodianship and safeguard the Holy City for all humanity as a moral obligation. International solidarity with this historic and religious responsibility is a duty for all nations. 

No doubt, the King’s carefully chosen words on this occasion will go a long away in supporting the search for a peaceful and equitable solution for the Palestinian conflict.

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