SHALOM VISIT POSTPONED

S E C R E T AMMAN 000689

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/27/2014
TAGS: PREL IS JO
SUBJECT: SHALOM VISIT POSTPONED

Classified By: CDA David Hale for reasons 1.5 (b) (d)


1. (S) By mutual Jordanian-Israeli agreement, Israeli
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's January 28 visit to Jordan
has been postponed. Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan
Muasher told Charge late January 27 that Shalom refused to
come without a scheduled meeting with King Abdullah, an
ultimatum Muasher found unacceptable. He told Charge the
King had real scheduling problems but didn't want to see
Shalom in any event. Muasher asked Shalom to reconsider,
arguing that he and PM Faisal al-Fayez still wanted to
receive him. Muasher feigned disappointment, telling Charge
the government would now look as if it had backed down when
confronted with parliamentary opposition to the visit.
Although Muasher emphasized that there was "no political
dimension" to the failure to set a meeting with the King, his
office director (protect) told PolCouns that the Israeli
insistence on a meeting with the King was "aimed only at
Israeli public opinion" and did not take into consideration
Jordan's increasingly vocal parliamentary opposition. He
cast the refusal to schedule a meeting with the King as
designed to protect the King personally from the expected
political fallout from the visit.


2. (S) The Israeli Ambassador here told Charge (somewhat
contradictorily) that the Jordanian position was both an
effort to sideline Shalom (intolerable for Shalom
politically) and a pretext designed to engineer an Israeli
cancellation and postpone an increasingly inconvenient visit,
and on the second point we share his analysis. In
particular, the breakthrough on an Israeli-Hizballah prisoner
exchange, and statements by Hizballah SYG Nasrallah claiming
that Jordanian prisoner releases were part of the deal,
embarrassed the Jordanians, as just such a release was to be
the primary outcome of the Shalom visit. The Israeli
Ambassador told us that despite unhappiness with the collapse
of the proposed visit, Shalom remained committed to the
process of returning the prisoners.


3. (S) Comment: This development shows the degree to which
aspects of Jordan-Israel relations are increasing affected by
perceived slights, and may make progress on a range of
issues, including prisoner releases and outstanding trade and
economic relations, harder to attain. However, core defense
and intelligence ties remain strong and insulated from these
irritants.

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HALE