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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan | |
| Jordan king wants new intel chief to back reform | |
| 2011-10-19 | |
AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdallah on Tuesday issued directives to the newly-appointed head of the General Intelligence Department to support political reform and carry out “modernization” of the country’s top security apparatus.
Abdallah on Monday appointed Shoubaki as new intelligence chief in what appeared as a shakeup of the state’s top posts that also involved picking International Court of Justice judge, Awn Khasawneh as new prime minister. “The regional and local circumstances through which you take up the responsibility of this pioneering security establishment require the adoption of a national culture of openness, transparency and accountability,” the king said, referring to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt that inspired months of demonstrations in Jordan and other Arab countries. The monarch asked Khasawneh to open dialogue with all political parties and ensure the enactment of a new election law that leads to a lower house truly representative of the people. Meanwhile, Jordan’s main opposition political party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), said Tuesday it was awaiting the program and composition of the new Cabinet to decide its stance on the change or any offers to join the new government. “The important thing is not who goes and who comes, but rather how the Cabinet is formed and what program it adopts,” the IAF Secretary-General Hamzeh Mansour told Arab News. For the past four years, Bakhit has been at loggerheads with the IAF and its mother group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which accused him of rigging the 2007 general elections to cripple the opposition’s presence at the House of Representatives. “We want a program with a timetable for bringing the country out of its present crisis and returning back powers to the people,” Mansour said. Asked about the possibility of his party joining the new Cabinet, the IAF chief replied: “The answer is neither yes nor no.” “Our stance will depend on the composition of the ministerial team and their action program.” | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 Be careful with Jordan. |
| Posted by: newc 2011-10-19 00:36 |