Will Jordan reclaim sovereignty over controversial land on Israeli border?
Statements by former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdel Salam al-Majali that a tiny strip of land on the Jordan-Israel border — ceded by Israel to Jordan under the 1994 peace treaty and then leased back to Israel — is owned by Jews have stirred a nationwide controversy.
The Jordanian government is considering whether to renew a 25-year “special regime” — under an annex of the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel — set to expire in 2019. This agreement gives Israel private landownership rights and property interests in the Baqoura area under Jordan’s sovereignty. However, former Prime Minister and chief peace negotiator Abdel Salam al-Majali delivered a shocker in a TV interview March 20. The former premier stated that lands in the Baqoura area, which Israel calls Naharayim, are in fact privately owned by Jews. Majali told Al-Urdun Al-Youm TV station that while Jordan has sovereignty over the area, the land in Baqoura was registered to Jewish owners back in 1926. He said the area was under Israeli occupation and was returned to Jordan, which did not lease it to Israel since it is private property.
The revelations reverberated across the Hashemite Kingdom with Lower House deputies expressing outrage. Two days before Majali’s interview, 20 deputies signed a petition calling on the government not to renew what for the last 24 years has been described as a lease, which covers Baqoura, along the Jordan River, and al-Ghamr in Wadi Araba.
