War on terror is ‘truly WWIII by other means’ — Judeh

AMMAN — Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on Friday reiterated that the war on terrorism “has to have a Muslim/Arab stand”, with international support, stressing that “it is truly a Third World War by other means”, quoting previous remarks by His Majesty King Abdullah.

Following a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington, DC, Judeh underlined that without aid from “our friends, our partners in the coalition, we cannot do it and we cannot eradicate this evil”, in reference to Daesh.

“You have over 90 nationalities fighting along these sick, warp-minded terrorists, and you have over 65 countries as part of a coalition. All of us are being threatened by these people — all our countries, all our individuals — and I think it takes the collective effort of all of us to defeat them and we shall prevail,” the top diplomat was quoted in a US State Department statement as saying.

Judeh was in Washington to attend the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, which concluded on Thursday with an address by President Barack Obama. 

In his remarks at the summit, Judeh reasserted Jordan’s stand on terror, stressing that those who support or try to justify extremist ideologies are enemies.  

In remarks after meeting Judeh, Kerry spoke about a memo signed recently, under which Washington  raised its assistance to Jordan to $1 billion. 

“[The memo] is a reflection of the very, very key role that Jordan is playing in terms of many efforts in the Middle East: the counter-ISIL/Daesh effort, our initiatives with respect to Middle East peace, Palestinian-Israeli relations, security, counterterrorism, and of course, Syria,” he said, in reference to Jordan’s efforts to care for Syrians who fled violence in their country. 

“Jordan is also feeling more of the consequences of this disruption in the Middle East than almost any other country. They have well over a million, maybe million-and-a-half refugees in their country who have come out of Syria. It’s a distortion in their economy and presents enormous challenges internally. So we simply could not find a country that has been more willing to be a good stand-up, get-the-job-done partner than the Kingdom of Jordan,” Kerry said.