[ad_1]
AMMAN (Reuters) – Jordan announced on Sunday that it would not extend the 25-year deal allowing Israel to use two expanses of territory along its border, while Israel said that it would not be able to extend the deal. he was still considering negotiating an extension.
Much of the land in Baquora, in the northwest of the kingdom, and Ghumar in the south, is used by Israeli farmers. Some of them have obtained property rights on private land and special travel rights under a 1994 peace treaty between the two countries.
The agreement will expire next year.
King Abdullah is under increasing pressure from the public to end agreements with Israel. He told Jordanian politicians that the kingdom wanted to exercise "full sovereignty" over these two regions, the Petra News Agency reported.
"These are Jordanian lands and they will remain …" said the monarch. In this "period of regional unrest", his kingdom, located between Syria in the north, Iraq in the east and Israel in the west, Jordan wanted to protect its "national interests", said Abdullah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country wants to exercise its option to end the deal.
But he said that Israel will "start negotiations with him on the possibility of extending the current agreement". [J7N1RM01W]
Under the terms of the peace treaty, the lease would be automatically renewed unless one of the parties notifies the other, one year before expiry, of its intention to terminate the agreement, also announced Sunday the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement.
Jordan is one of only two Arab countries to have a peace treaty with Israel, and the two countries have long maintained close security ties. They have also developed their economic ties over the last year.
But the peace treaty with Israel is an unpopular and pro-Palestinian sentiment widespread in Jordan. Activists and politicians spoke out against a revival that would perpetuate the Israeli "occupation" of Jordanian territory.
Political ties were also tense during the Middle East peace process. An incident occurred last year in which an Israeli security officer killed two Jordanian citizens in the Israeli embassy compound added to the tension.
Under an annex to the peace agreement, Israel uses about 1,000 acres (405 hectares) of agricultural land in the southern sector of its border with Jordan.
In the Baquora region, known in Hebrew as Naharayim, the "property rights" of Israeli citizens date back to the 1920s, when the Russian Jewish engineer, Pinhas Rutenberg, obtained a British-mandated concession in Palestine for the construction of a Power plant.
In the 1994 peace treaty, Jordan's sovereignty over the region was confirmed, but the Israelis retained ownership of their private lands and special provisions allowing free travel to Israel.
Report by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Additional report by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; edited by John Stonestreet, Adrian Croft, Anna Willard
