Jordanians, Palestinians jump-start economic relations
The first meeting in three years of the Joint Higher Jordanian-Palestinian Committee was deemed positive, with agreements signed in a number of sectors.
After years of lackluster economic cooperation, Palestinian-Jordanian relations have warmed considerably. The Joint Jordanian-Palestinian Higher Committee, which has not met in three years, held high-level meetings in Amman Sept. 27. Ministers and businesspersons from both sides attended a flurry of marathon gatherings, which resulted in the signing of five agreements at the Prime Ministry during a summit headed by Jordanian Prime Minister Hani al-Mulki and Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. Both sides described the atmosphere at the signing ceremony as excellent.
The official Jordanian news agency, Petra, and the official Palestinian agency, Wafa, issued long, almost identical press releases, which were posted to government websites. Maha Sayegh, economic attache at the Palestinian Embassy in Amman, told Al-Monitor that the meetings were extremely courteous and collegial. “I have attended many similar meetings of the joint committee, and I don’t recall any meeting as warm and friendly as this one,” she said.
According to Sayegh, both parties appeared to be genuinely interested in moving the cooperative process forward, especially on the economic track. “Whenever we reached an impasse, and if one side insisted on their position, the other side compromised in order to accomplish an agreed-to deal,” she remarked.
The Joint Jordanian-Palestinian Higher Committee was established in 1995 after the inauguration of the first Palestinian government stemming from the Oslo Accords. The committee’s goals are to strengthen and improve relations between Palestinians and Jordanians on all fronts. Its efforts, however, have often been affected by fluctuations in tensions or improvements in political relations, although the aim was for committee agreements to become institutional in nature, devoid of politics.
