Int'l community 'duty-bound' to support Jordan in hosting Syrians — House speaker

AMMAN — Supporting Jordan's humanitarian services to Syrian refugees is an "international duty", especially with the latest official figures putting the number of Syrian refugees in the resource-limited Kingdom at 1.3 million, Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh said Saturday.

At a meeting with German Bundestag President Norbert Lammert in Amman, Tarawneh voiced the House's full support to His Majesty King Abdullah's position, expressed at donor conference in London last Thursday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

He also said that Jordan is determined to protect its national interests despite the tremendous challenges it is facing and calls for finding political solutions to the region's crises.

The Kingdom, Tarawneh noted, has been calling for a comprehensive political solution to Syria's conflict that can end bloodshed and safeguard the country's territorial unity, adding that the widespread influence of terrorist groups in Syria is the result of the world's inability to heed Jordan's calls.

Turning to Iraq, he blamed the domestic sectarian politics and marginalisation of certain social segments for the Daesh terror groups' control over vast swathes of land, according to Petra.

Tarawneh also placed the long-running Palestinian-Israeli conflict at the heart of the region's woes, saying also that Israeli attacks on Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem and its calls for a Jewish state all "provoke young people and push them to join radical groups".

For his part, Lammert said Germany is working intensively on resolving the Middle East's problems because the region's woes will sooner or later have their consequences on Europe, Petra reported.

He also noted that both Jordan and Germany suffer from the same refugee dilemma, noting that solving the region's problems requires identifying their real causes.

During a field visit to the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Mafraq, some 90km northeast of Amman, Lammert said the international community is required to support refugee-burdened Jordan which, he said, is handling the Syrian refugee crisis on behalf of the world.

The German official arrived in Amman on Friday on a three-day visit, according to Petra.