Interior minister calls for coordination among state agencies

AMMAN — Minister of Interior Salameh Hammad on Saturday called for more coordination and cooperation among all state agencies to ultimately arrive at a state of complementary performance.

He made the remarks during field visits to the Omari border crossing and Azraq Refugee Camp, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Hammad said the objective of the visit was to check on measures taken at the Omari crossing, on the border with Saudi Arabia, to facilitate the movement of arrivals and departures.

He was accompanied by Finance Minister Umayyah Touqan, Tourism Minister Nayef Al Fayez, Jordan Customs Department Director General Munther Assaf, Jordan Toursim Board Managing Director Abed Al Razzaq Arabiyat and a number of security officials.

Touqan voiced his ministry’s readiness to allocate the funds required to help the southeastern border crossing meet its demands and upgrade its services, Petra reported.

Col. Musa Hyasat, director of the border crossing, presented a briefing on the facility’s services, goals and future plans, noting that 599,000 people entered the Kingdom through Omari since the beginning of this year while the number of departures stood at 606,000.

At the Azraq Refugee Camp, some 100km east of Amman and 20km west of the town of Azraq in Zarqa Governorate, Hammad said Jordan deals with the Syrian refugee crisis in line with its pan-Arab and humanitarian obligations. 

The ongoing influx of refugees to resource-limited Jordan has created exceptional circumstances for the country in addition to the huge burden on its infrastructure, education, health, economy, water, labour and security sectors, he added, according to Petra.

Maj. Gen. Wadah Hmoud, head of the Syrian refugee affairs directorate, said the camp, established in April last year, offers services to around 20,000 Syrian refugees.