Jordan's King Abdullah II on Wednesday said the string of terror attacks on the United States would not have taken place if the Middle East problem had been resolved.
"If the United States had resolved the problems in the Middle East, notably the Israeli-Palestinian question, I seriously doubt that they (the attacks) would have taken place," the king said in an interview with the US Cable News Network (CNN) television channel.
According to Abdullah, the attacks were "a call for all of us in the international community to ensure a stop to the violence and bring the parties back to the negotiations table."
"The vacuum is giving extremists the upper hand and provides them with opportunities to try and carry out operations like those which occurred yesterday," he said, stressing that the problem must be "solved once and for all."
Abdullah said his country's security services were "working closely with the United States for several years to fight terrorism," adding that "many countries across the world have been the target of terrorist organizations."
Terrorism is not a "new phenomenon of the week ... I am surprised that something similar had not happened earlier," he said.
Referring to the celebrations which took place in Palestinian refugee camps, Abdullah said a "small group of individuals" do not "reflect all Palestinians and the region."
"We were all shocked and saddened by the devastating incident," he said.
The Jordanian king, en route to the United States Tuesday, was forced to return home and cancel a scheduled meeting with US President George W. Bush for talks on the Middle East crisis on September 20 -- AMMAN, Sept (AFP)
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