A Conversation with King Abdullah of Jordan

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A Talk With Jordan's King

6/20/08: Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth interviews King Abdullah of Jordan about the Arab-Israeli peace process and how he views Iran.

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas [also known as Abu Mazen] is reaching out to Hamas to form another unity government. What do you think of this?

Abu Mazen has, I think, some strict guidelines that he has given to Hamas. Now whether Hamas accepts them or not is another question, but there is dialogue going on. We'll just have to wait and see. We've gone through this process before where the groups have sat down around the table but failed to agree at the end of the day. We can only keep our fingers crossed.

Do you favor the formation of a [Palestinian] national unity government?

It depends what the aims are. The elected and official face of the Palestinians is the PNA [Palestinian National Assembly], so it depends on what Abu Mazen and Fatah [Abbas's party] or Hamas can agree upon.

How do you see things in Iraq today?

I am actually optimistic for the first time on Iraq. I think that Iraqi society is moving in the right direction. It's the first time that I have felt that Iraqis have, as much as they can, bound themselves together into a unity. They have worked together -- Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis -- for the betterment of Iraq in the last couple of months. Here's an opportunity for Arab countries to reach out, which we haven't done in the past, and extend a hand of friendship to the Iraqis and give them the support that they need to get to the next step. If we don't, I think that it will be a loss for the Iraqis and for the Arab moderates.

I think we have a window of several months to really start a new page with Iraq. Countries are starting to send their ambassadors to Iraq. We are looking at sending our ambassador back there. We had a very successful visit of [Iraqi] Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to Jordan last week.

Inside Jordan, things are difficult now due to the price of food and other commodities.

I think it is [the same] all over the world. We will have a major problem with rising prices, food concerns for the next couple of years. We're looking at how we can keep supporting the middle class and the poverty sector to make sure they can actually get food on the table and then keep the deficit under control. Oil prices have just been such a shock. Summer has been easier but when you get to the winter, the issue of heating is going to be a major problem. We are pursuing alternative forms of energy. We're looking at nuclear energy.