A senior official said earlier that a Jordanian-US meeting in Washington was "very much needed to maintain Arab contacts with the US administration" and influence key countries as to their position on the Middle East situation. It will be King Abdullah's sixth trip to the United States since President George Bush took office in January 2001.
Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said Arab countries were coordinating steps towards "translating the positive elements in [US President George] Bush's speech on the Middle East into an action plan." Noting that Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be represented for the first time at Tuesday's meeting in New York of the so-called "Quartet" for the Middle East - the US, UN, EU and Russia - Muasher described the meeting "as very important." But a US State Department official said that plans for the meeting had been changed. Instead of meeting with the three Arab foreign ministers on Tuesday, the quartet members will probably see the Jordanian and Egyptian ministers over dinner that night.
Muasher said the suicide bombings dealt a heavy blow to the Palestinian cause and hampered Arab efforts towards "engaging the US administration in solving the conflict." In his view, Bush might have committed himself to a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders had it not been for the suicide bombings. The Foreign Minister called these bombings "the gravest mistake committed by the Palestinians," adding that Jordan rejects them on "humanitarian and political grounds."
