IRAN'S LARIJANI PAYS A LOW-KEY VISIT TO AMMAN

S E C R E T AMMAN 000277

NOFORN
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/27/2019
TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER IR IS SY JO
SUBJECT: IRAN'S LARIJANI PAYS A LOW-KEY VISIT TO AMMAN

REF: A. AMMAN 219

B. AMMAN 92

C. AMMAN 41

Classified By: Ambassador R. Stephen Beecroft
for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (S/NF) Summary: Although it was little-known in Jordan,
speaker of the Iranian parliament Ali Larijani paid a low-key
visit to Amman on January 9, accompanied by the speakers of
the Syrian and Indonesian parliaments. Despite several
attempts by the Jordanian government to turn off the visit,
the group ended up meeting with parliamentary leaders.
Before cutting their visit short, the group reportedly asked
that Jordan not cut off diplomatic relations with Israel.
End Summary.

Unwelcome Visitors
--------------


2. (U) Al-Jazeera and Jordanian local media reported that
speaker of the Iranian parliament Ali Larijani visited Amman
on January 9. Larijani was reportedly accompanied by Mahmoud
Al-Abrash, speaker of the Syrian parliament, and Agung
Laksono, speaker of the Indonesian parliament. The group,
which officially came under cover of the Asian Parliamentary
Union, was received by Jordan's lower house speaker Abdulhadi
Al-Majali, deputy speaker Abdullah Al-Jazy, and assistant
speaker Nasser Al-Qaisi.


3. (S/NF) Qaisi (strictly protect) told poloff on January 27
that the Jordanian government tried multiple times to prevent
the delegation from coming, insisting that the timing (in the
middle of the Gaza crisis) was not right. In the end, the
visiting delegation forced the issue by calling Jordanian
officials just before their flight took off from Damascus to
demand landing rights at the Marka military airport in Amman.
The flight plan was reluctantly approved, although
bitterness still lingers over the abrupt nature of the
request, according to Qaisi.


4. (S/NF) Once in Jordan, the group pressed relentlessly for
a meeting with King Abdullah, but the request was rebuffed by
Royal Court for "scheduling reasons," Qaisi said. Majali,
Jazi, and Qaisi were dispatched instead to provide the bare
minimum of acceptable protocol equivalency, but they made
clear that they had no authority to speak on behalf of the
government. Qaisi portrayed the meetings as cordial but said
that Larijani repeatedly asked to see the King "until the
last hour" of the visit. When it was clear that no contact
with executive branch officials was forthcoming, the group
cut its visit short and returned to Damascus.

A Message for the King
--------------


5. (S/NF) At the end of the meeting at Jordan's parliament,
the group relayed a message that they claimed they had
planned to deliver to the King, emphasizing repeatedly that
it was not to be leaked. According to Qaisi, the group asked
that Jordan resist the calls of local Islamists to expel the
Israeli Ambassador and cut diplomatic ties. The group
emphasized that the Jordanian-Israeli relationship was a
valuable channel of communication that needed to be left
open. Note: At the time, Jordan's Ambassador to Israel was
on leave in Jordan, causing local press to speculate
(wrongly) that he had been recalled (Ref B) over events in
Gaza. In a move to placate public opinion, PM Nader Dahabi
had separately hinted that relations with Israel may need to
be "reconsidered" during a speech to parliament days earlier
(Ref C). End Note.

Comment
--------------


6. (S/NF) Larijani's visit to Amman is unusual. Jordan and
Iran maintain diplomatic ties, but visits by official
Iranians of any kind are almost unheard of. In our repeated
attempts to confirm the details of the visit over several
weeks, Jordanian officials were unaware that Larijani had
entered the country.
Beecroft