King Abdullah II warns of fresh Mideast conflict

WASHINGTON: The prolonged stalemate in the Middle East peace process could lead to another conflict in the region if it continues, Jordan's King Abdullah II warned in an interview broadcast Sunday.

"I just have a feeling that we're going to be living with the status quo for 2011. Whenever we accept the status quo, we do so until there is another war," Abdullah II told ABC television's "This Week."

"If you look to the past 10 years, every two to two-and-a-half years, there is either the a war or a conflict," he said, referring to the Palestinian uprising.

"So looking back over the past 12 years, my experience shows me that if we ignore the Israeli-Palestinian issue, something will burst."

In a major policy speech Thursday, Obama called for the borders of Israel and a future Palestinian state to be based on territorial lines in place before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, with mutually agreed land swaps to frame a secure peace.

Abdullah said the image of the United States in Jordan had suffered "because of its perceived lack of ability to move the Israeli-Palestinian process forward."

Peace talks have been largely on ice since 2008, and "it's going to be the Arabs and Israelis (who) are going to pay the ultimate price" for the lack of progress, he added.

"It's always easy to find an excuse why not to do the right thing," he said.

"And if we continue along those lines, then we will never solve this problem. So we need leaders with courage to take the tough decisions and solve this once and for all."

Abdullah, himself facing a string of popular protests since January demanding political and economic reforms as well as more efforts to fight corruption, described the wave of uprisings roiling North Africa and the Middle East as a "wake up call."

"This is a new and definitely defining moment for the Middle East. It was economic frustration and desires, that led, I think, to a political awakening, that they want to be able to chart their own destiny," he said.

He defended fresh elections due in his country at the end of the year as "the start of new democracy in our country," and said he had "no worries" Jordan would fall in the hands of extremists amid the continuing protests.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011