By Jörg Blank and Cindy Riechau, dpa
Amman (dpa) – German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has called for an expansion of international refugee aid to Jordan during a visit to the country.
Many schools in Jordan have been closed, in some cases for the past 18 months, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Baerbock said on Friday during a visit to a refugee camp near the Jordanian capital Amman.
She had spoken with the camp’s management “about how we can provide support in the area of education, so that children can go back to school.”
It is “important that we not only continue international aid, but also expand it, especially within the framework of the United Nations,” she said.
Baerbock said that Germany is the second largest donor in Jordan. The Green politician said she would examine where Germany could provide more support for Jordan, for example in the area of solar power. “The sun is shining here right now. We see that we actually have a lot of roofs where we could put solar on top.”
The Talbieh refugee settlement was built in 1968 by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for people displaced in Israel in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War.
About 9,500 people currently live in the camp, which was originally built to house 5,000.
At a press conference in Amman with her counterpart Ayman al-Safadi, Baerbock said Germany will remain a “reliable partner” to the kingdom.
Their meeting “confirmed the strength of the German-Jordanian relations,” al-Safadi said.
The two discussed regional issues including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said they both backed a two-state solution.
“We agree on importance of finding a real political horizon to reach fair and comprehensive peace in the region,” al-Safadi told reporters. “We agreed to continue to work together to reach a breakthrough in terms of returning to negotiations.”
Baerbock arrived in Jordan on Thursday evening from Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and will continue her first official Mideast tour in Egypt.
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