ICRC President praises Jordan’s humanitarian role in refugee crisis during meeting with Safadi

AMMAN — Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ayman Safadi on Wednesday met with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Peter Maurer, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

The meeting focused on the existing cooperation between the Kingdom and the ICRC on the refugees’ issue, the statement added.

Safadi and Maurer stressed the importance of cooperation and its role in meeting the humanitarian and basic needs of refugees. Maurer valued Jordan’s great humanitarian stance towards refugees, despite the pressures and burdens it bears as a result, the statement said.

Safadi stressed the importance the international community’s continued commitment to shouldering its responsibilities towards refugees and the Kingdom, especially in light of the difficult economic conditions in Jordan, as a result of the great pressures and burdens imposed by the Syrian refugee crisis on the Kingdom’s key sectors, according to the statement.

He also stressed that Jordan encourages the voluntary return of refugees and calls on the international community to activate international efforts for the attainment of a political solution to the crisis in Syria that will allow the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland, the statement added.

He affirmed the need to ensure the return of displaced Syrians in the Rukban camp to their home towns as a radical solution to the problem of the encampment, which Jordan will not bear responsibility for given the fact that the encampment is a gathering of Syrian citizens on Syrian soil, the statement said.

On January 29, Safadi told Sputnik news agency that arrangements to deliver humanitarian aid to Rukban are only temporary solutions that do not address the real issue.

Jordan, Russia and the United States are discussing measures to address the Rukban camp situation, as well as the Syrian situation as a whole, Safadi said.

“What we are working on now is to make sure that those meetings continue with a view to ensuring a quick agreement on steps to have these IDPs [internally displaced people] go back to their homes,” he said.

According to a recent UNICEF statement to The Jordan Times, there are some 45,000 IDPs estimated in the camp, many of them children.