Jordan halts water talks with Israel

Jordan has announced the suspension of talks with Israel on establishing a station for desalinization of springs waters from Beisan region to provide Jordan with 50 million cubic meters of waters of the annual additional waters agreed upon between Israel and Jordan. Jordan also declared rejection to reduce the amounts of waters arrived to it from Israel under Israeli pretext of the water level at Tiberies Lake as a result of drought.

The secretary general for the Jordan valley establishment Zafer al-Alem explained that the discussions between Jordan and Israel on establishing a station to desalinize in the Beisan district were suspended because of the current conditions and events in the Palestinian territories.

Worthy mentioning that both Jordan and Israel had earlier agreed that Israel will provide Jordan with 25 million cubic meters of waters from the Tiberies lake annually until the building of the said station.

However, negotiations were stumbled because Israel has asked Jordan to pay the cost of the station estimated at USD 150 million, at a time when Jordan announced it is not obliged to pay the cost of this station.