Jordan’s king on rare visit to Ramallah

Jordan’s King Abdullah II is to meet Monday with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on his first visit in five years to the West Bank city of Ramallah, a Palestinian official said.

Mohammed Shtayyeh, a top official in the Fatah party of Abbas, told AFP on Saturday the two leaders would discuss efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which has been at a standstill since 2014.

It will be the first visit since December 2012 by Abdullah — whose country is custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem and which has a 2004 peace treaty with Israel — to the Palestinian political capital in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Jordan intervened last month to help resolve a crisis over access to the ultra-sensitive Haram al-Sharif mosque compound in the Old City of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, know to Jews as Temple Mount.