Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met secretly with Jordan's King Abdullah II last week at his palace in Amman in what was the monarch's first meeting with an Israeli premier in three years, Ynet learned on Thursday
Bennett arrived in the Jordanian capital by helicopter and the two leaders discussed Israel supplying greater drinking water provisions to the drought-hit kingdom.
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Jordan's King Abdullah II and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett
(Photo: Reuters, Gettyimages)
With his first meeting with an Israeli prime minister since June 2018, King Abdullah signaled he was willing to turn over a new leaf in Israeli-Jordanian ties, leaving behind years of rocky relations with former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which became particularly tense over the last year.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid Wednesday held a meeting with his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi at the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing, the first since the former took office last month.
Both parties have discussed several economic issues and agreed to increase Jordan's potential export value to the West Bank from some $160 million to $700 million a year, of which $470 million is under PA trade standards and the rest in accordance with Israeli trade standards.
The increase will be summed up by the parties in accordance with the Paris Protocol, which constitutes the economic framework for trade between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
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Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid
(Photo: AFP, AP)
Both diplomats also agreed on a deal that would see Israel sell Jordan an additional 50 million cubic meters of water this year, the final details of which will be hammered out by negotiation teams in the coming days.
Following the meeting, Lapid took to Twitter to praise Israel's neighbor to the east and has vowed to expand economic cooperation between the two countries.
"The Kingdom of Jordan is an important neighbor and partner to the State of Israel, the Foreign Ministry will continue to will continue to hold an ongoing dialogue in order to preserve and strengthen relations, we will expand economic cooperation for the benefit of both countries," he wrote.