Jordanian King to Visit IranJordanian King Abdullah Bin Hussein will soon visit Iran at the invitation of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami for the first time since he acceded to the throne in February 1999, Jordanian officials said on Thursday.Khatami's invitation was contained in a message delivered to the king Wednesday night by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Sayyed Mohammad Sadr, who is visiting the kingdom as a special envoy of the Iranian president. In the message, Khatami expressed Iran's appreciations for Jordan's stand on Islamic issues, mainly on the holy city of Jerusalem. Khatami commended the monarch's efforts to safeguard the interests of the Islamic nations and his support for the rights of the Palestinians, particularly the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Currently Khatami is the chairman of the Organization of Islamic Conference which groups 54 Islamic countries. High on the agenda of King Abdullah's visit to Iran will be bilateral ties between Jordan and Iran, and the fate of Jerusalem among other issues standing in the Middle East peace process. Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, and later annexed it and claimed the city as its "eternal and indivisible" capital. |
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