Jordanians Protest US Vice President's Visit

Rasa - Jordanian Protesters gathered in front of the US Embassy in Amman on Monday to protest against US Vice President Mike Pence's visit to their country.

News ID: 435932

Date: 22 January 2018 - 17:37

RNA - "I'm here for protesting the visit of the Vice President of the United States of America. We disagree on their policies and we disagree with all their policies regarding this topic," one of the protesters Rob Hush stated, The Jerusalem Post reported.

"We reject the Pence visit and we totally refuse it, and we ask the government not to welcome him and not accept his visit, especially after the protests the people have been doing for more than 40 days here," another protester Mageed Ayman said.

Jordan plays a large role in the Palestine-Israel conflict. Palestinian Jordanians and Palestinian refugees account for 47 percent of Jordan's population. They are firmly against US President Donald Trump's decision and will boycott any further decisions they see as unfavorable during Pence's visit to Israel.

Protests have been held almost every weekend in front of the US Embassy in Jordan since Trump's decision on Jerusalem was announced early December 2017. They called on the Jordanian government to listen to the people's wishes not to welcome Pence.

Pence is the first senior official of the Trump administration to visit the Middle East since US declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, while the visit comes amid widespread anger in the Arab world over the decision by Washington.

Pence, who arrived in Cairo on Saturday to start his first Middle East tour, travels on Sunday to Jordan and to Israel later the same day. He is scheduled to address the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, on Monday.

His trip had originally been scheduled for December but was postponed because of the furor over the Jerusalem decision, which broke with decades of international diplomacy.

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