JORDAN NOT TO SEND MINISTERIAL LEVEL REP TO MADRID

C O N F I D E N T I A L AMMAN 006766 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/22/2013 TAGS: EAID BEXP PREL ETRD IZ JO SUBJECT: JORDAN NOT TO SEND MINISTERIAL LEVEL REP TO MADRID BECAUSE OF GOVERNMENT CHANGE REF: A. AMMAN 6728 ¶B. AMMAN 6620 Classified By: Amb. Edward W. Gnehm for reasons 1.5 (b)(d) ¶1. (C) Bassam Awadallah, the immediate past and likely future Minister of Planning, told the Ambassador October 22 that Jordan would be unable to send a ministerial representative to the Madrid Iraq Donors Conference. With the resignation of the Jordanian PM and government October 22 (ref a and septel - notal),there are neither ministers to send nor a government to send them. The new government is expected to be sworn in on Saturday, October 25. As a consequence, Awadallah said that neither he nor outgoing Finance Minister Michel Marto (who was tapped to go to Madrid - ref b) would attend. Instead, he said, Planning Ministry Secretary General Hala Bsiso-Lattouf would represent Jordan SIPDIS at the donors conference along with representatives of the Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Trade (as reported previously). ¶2. (C) Awadallah also said that, due to the short notice and previous commitments of business leaders, the GOJ had been unable to organize Jordanian private sector participation in the parallel private sector conference in Madrid. He said that Bsiso-Lattouf would "drop by" the private sector conference at some point. ¶3. (U) CPA Baghdad minimize considered. Visit Embassy Amman's classified web site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ or access the site through the State Department's SIPRNET home page. GNEHM