Jordan FM postpones visit to Kuwait, Amman denies a crisis

Jordanian official sources denied the existence of any political crisis with Kuwait that pushed the Jordanian Foreign minister Marwan Muasher to postpone his due visit to Kuwait.

The sources said that Muasher's visit which was due yesterday was postponed until the mid January 15, because of "timing schedules" conflict especially from the Kuwaiti side.

The Jordanian papers quoted well-informed sources as saying that coordination between the two states is in its best. The sources explained that the agenda of the Kuwaiti officials at the Gulf and international arenas coincided with the Muasher visit and therefore an agreement was made for the new date.

A Kuwaiti daily talked yesterday about differences that erupted between the two states because of Kuwait's non- approval to renew the oil donation for Jordan for the year 2004, and this resulted in abrogating the visit, and then the meeting of the joint committee between the two states, due in Kuwait.

Jordan gets one quarter of its oil needs from Kuwait, and the same amount from the United Arab Emirates, and the remaining from Saudi Arabia at preferential rates prices. And this is since Iraqi oil supplies stopped as a result of the war on Iraq in March this year.

Worthy mentioning that Jordan used to import all its oil needs from Iraq since 1990 at a rate of 100,000 barrels per day, half of which used to be given as a donation from the toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and the other half at preferential price, almost half that of the international prices.

The Iraqi crude oil used to be transported to Jordan by land by some 2000 trucks, from Hadeitha oil fields, west Baghdad, to the oil refinery in al-Zarqaa city, 25 Km to the northern east of Amman.