Thirty six hours after the former Crown Prince of Jordan and at least 14 others were under house arrest amid allegations of a coup against King Abdullah, the White House and the State Department voiced their support for the Jordanian monarch.
“King Abdullah is a key partner of the United States,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki told White House reporters on Monday, “ He has our full support.”
She added that the White House was “closely following the reports out of Jordan. We’ve been in touch, as an administration, with Jordanian officials.”
Over the weekend, Jordan was in international headlines following an official report from the government that it had foiled a “malicious plot” by former Crown Prince Hamzah bin Hussein.
Hamzah had been Crown Prince and thus next-in-line to the throne behind his half-brother Abdullah until 2004, when the king stripped him of his title. Both Hamzah and Abdullah are sons of the late King Hussein, who brought Jordan firmly into the U.S. camp and brought about friendly relations between his country and Israel.
Strongly hinting Hamzah was possibly planning a coup against Abdullah and had met with enemies of the king, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told reporters “it was clear [the king’s enemies]moved from design into action and that their scheme had been thwarted “at zero hour” by Jordanian intelligence.
As to whether Hamzah was actually planning a coup, no one in Washington is saying.
“I would leave it to our Jordanian partners to speak to what they may have found,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price, “What I will say is that we are following the situation in Jordan closely – we made that very clear over the weekend – and we have been in touch with Jordanian officials because Jordan, of course, is a strategic partner of the United States. We value immensely our relationship and King Abdullah II’s leadership.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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