Jordan summons Iran’s envoy over response to zionist king

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry has summoned Iran’s ambassador to Amman to protest a senior Iranian official’s deprecation of King Abdullah’s allegations against Tehran in a recent interview. 

Ambassador Mojtaba Ferdosipour was summoned on Sunday after Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi dismissed as “ridiculous” the Jordanian monarch’s juxtaposition of the Islamic Republic with the Takfiri Daesh group.

Qassemi was reacting to King Abdullah’s argument that Israeli settlements were playing into the hands of Iran and Daesh which has the second or third biggest number of its members recruited from Jordan.

“It is advisable that the Jordanian king take a passing look first at the statistics released about the Jordanian terrorists joining Daesh and other blood-spilling and ignorant groups,” Qassemi said.

In a statement, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry said Qassemi’s comments “reflected a failed attempt to distort the pivotal role of Jordan in pursuing regional security and stability, fighting terrorism, countering attempts to sow strife or using Arab causes for own benefit.”

The ministry stressed that Iran should adhere to a good neighborly relationship with Arab countries, non-interference in their affairs and show respect for international conventions and norms in its actions and approach towards Arab countries, Petra news agency said.

Government spokesman Mohammed Momani said on Monday that Jordan took the step because of what he described as Iran’s interference in the “internal affairs of neighboring countries, especially (Persian) Gulf states.”

Qassemi had denounced the Jordanian king’s call on Arab countries to ally with Israel against Iran, reminding him of the “endless problems which the fabrication of the illegitimate Zionist regime has created for the Muslim world and the regional states.”

In January 2016, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador to Amman to condemn angry protests held outside the Saudi embassy in Tehran following the execution of prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

According to the data from the US House Homeland Security Committee, Jordan exports one of the biggest numbers of Daesh members to Syria and Iraq along with Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.

Last year, The Telegraph said more than 2,000 Jordanians had joined the Takfiri group which follows the extremist Wahhabi ideology preached on Jordan’s doorsteps in key ally, Saudi Arabia.