Jordan, Greece sign deal to increase cultural, educational cooperation

AMMAN — Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on Wednesday discussed bilateral relations and the latest regional developments with Greek Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos, whose country is now presiding over the EU Council. 

Talks between the two sides tackled means to enhance the Jordanian-Greek ties within the context of the Kingdom’s “advanced status” in the EU in addition to the latest regional developments, especially the peace process and the situation in Syria, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Judeh stressed the importance of intensifying efforts to relaunch the peace negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis, indicating that more failure in the peace process would ignite extremism and send the entire region into more instability.

Within this context, Judeh renewed Jordan’s “unaltered position” in support of efforts aiming at establishing an independent and viable Palestinian state on the basis of the two-state solution with East Jerusalem as its capital.

On Syria, the two sides stressed the importance of arriving at a political solution to the ongoing war there that incorporates all Syrian parties on the basis of Geneva I Communiqué.

Judeh also presented a briefing on Jordan’s mounting burden resulting from hosting more than 1.3 million Syrians, including 600,000 registered refugees, calling on the international community to increase its assistance to the Kingdom to be able to continue its humanitarian efforts.

Judeh also called on the Greek government to increase the number of scholarships offered to Jordanian students, especially in medicine, a request the Greek side promised to consider.

The meeting concluded with the two sides signing the executive programme for cultural and scientific cooperation and another agreement exempting diplomatic passports holders from visas.   

Also on Wednesday, Judeh stressed the importance of cooperation between Arab and EU countries to deal with challenges facing them.  

During his participation in the third joint meeting for the foreign ministers of Arab League member states and EU countries in Athens, he highlighted the need for efforts to ensure an immediate resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. 

He also called for collective efforts to arrive at a political solution to the Syrian crisis.