Jordan Times
Saturday, June 5, 1999
Jordan ready to send peacekeeping forces to Kosovo — King
AMMAN (J.T.) — His Majesty King Abdullah announced Jordan's readiness to send peacekeeping forces to Kosovo in a telephone conversation on Thursday with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, international news agencies have reported.
King Abdullah was quoted by Agence France Presse as saying he hoped that U.N. efforts would “bring about an end to this tragedy” and allow the around 900,000 ethnic Albanian refugees to return to their homes in Kosovo.
“If necessary, Jordan is ready to participate in a peacekeeping force in the region [under U.N. auspices], either as observers, peace-keepers or police,” the King told Annan.
On his part, the U.N. secretary general expressed appreciation for Jordan's role in U.N. peacekeeping forces across the world as well as the Kingdom's contribution to the Kosovo refugee tragedy in terms of humanitarian aid, AFP said.
The plight of the Kosovar refugees, mostly Muslims, was also at the centre of the King's talks on Thursday and Friday with visiting Crown Prince Abdullah Ben Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia.
The two expressed support for international efforts to end the war over Kosovo and discussed the humanitarian situation in the Yugoslav republic, condemning “all forms of violence and expulsion faced by the Kosovars,” a Jordanian official said.
Jordan was the first Arab country to voice support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's military operations against Serbia, started 71 days ago. The Kingdom was also the Arab country to take the firmest stand against Belgrade: on March 30, Jordan recalled its charg� d'affaires in the Yugoslav republic in protest against what a Royal Court spokesman did not hesitate to define as “ethnic cleansing, killing and displacement of ethnic Albanians from the Serbian province of Kosovo.”
During his visit to the U.S. last month, King Abdullah supported the idea of NATO ground operations in Kosovo, to ensure a situation on the ground favourable to the return of refugees.
As for Jordan's humanitarian efforts to ease the Kosovars' suffering, an air-bridge was opened after the first week of war, with Her Majesty Queen Rania's mission to Macedonia to oversee the distribution of 18,000 tonnes of tents, blankets, and food donated by individuals and charities.
Jordan's official stand vis-�-vis the Kosovo crisis was similar to that of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which since the beginning expressed full support to NATO and condemned the policy of “ethnic cleansing” perpetrated by Serbian authorities against Albanian Kosovars.
But government and civil society institutions appeared split over the crisis, with associations and political parties condemning the attacks against Serbia as a flagrant violation of international law.
Most political parties, professional associations and opinion leaders have accused NATO of provoking the human tragedy of refugees from Kosovo. Jordan's strongest party, the Islamic Action Front, squarely placed the blame on the West, describing the crisis as a conspiracy orchestrated by the Atlantic alliance to clear the Balkans of all Muslims, while claiming to act in their defence.
In various press statements since the beginning of war, the powerful Muslim Brotherhood movement has warned Arab and Muslim peoples against “the international conspiracy aimed at driving Muslims out of Europe.”
Intellectuals, columnists, and ordinary people alike have conceded their sense of hesitancy and unease in approving of air strikes that target a regime accused of suppressing its Muslim population, but that are, at the same time, led by the same powers — the U.S. and Great Britain — that “attacked” Iraq and championed sanctions against some Arab states.
