Jordan is abandoning its cautious diplomatic stand on Syria — one that has favored a political solution to the two-year-old conflict but without calling directly on President Bashar al-Assad to leave — and has joined a growing number of Arab and regional countries who see no role for the Syrian strongman in the future of that country.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh joined counterparts from Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as Turkey, in Abu Dhabi on May 13 to discuss a new US-Russian proposal to hold an international conference on Syria soon.

A joint statement said that the ministers backed a June 2012 Geneva plan for a transitional government in Syria as long as “it takes in consideration that Assad and his aides with blood-stained hands would have no place in Syria’s future,” according to UAE’s news agency. It was the first time that Jordan had supported such strongly worded anti-Assad rhetoric since the outset of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.

It also contravenes calls by a number of Jordanian politicians and commentators that their country stay away from the Syrian quagmire. Last month Assad accused the Jordanian authorities of allowing thousands of “terrorists” to cross the border into his country. He warned that the Syrian fire could reach Jordan.