Jordan's professional unions want to collect two million signatures on petitions opposed to any attempt to resettle millions of Palestinian refugees in their host countries, a union leader said Monday.
"It will be meant as a message to all the concerned parties that the Jordanian people are opposed to any move to liquidate the Palestinian cause, their right to return and to compensation," Mahmoud Abu Ghneima, secretary general of the unions' council, told AFP.
"Jordanians will not accept the definitive settlement of Palestinian refugees in the countries hosting them," he said.
"We expect to launch this campaign next week, and we're confident it will be successful," he said, adding that the campaign could be spread to other Arab countries.
A statement from the trade unions council, meanwhile, said the US-sponsored Camp David summit between Palestinian and Israeli leaders underway since Tuesday "will never allow the Palestinian people to recover their rights."
It blamed this on Israel's "hardline positions" and said that jihad, or holy war, was "the only way to liberate Palestine."
In a policy statement earlier this month, Jordan's new Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb said his country will never agree to accept more Palestinian refugees than those registered in the kingdom.
He also stressed Jordan's determination to support the Palestinian "right to return and to compensation".
The right of return of around four million refugees, who either fled or were forced out of their homes during the creation of Israel in 1948 and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, is one of the thorniest issues facing Camp David negotiators.
An Israeli official last week told AFP that Israel is proposing to offer a limited return as a humanitarian gesture to tens of thousands of refugees as part of a "family reunification" program - AMMAN (AFP)
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