King Hussein warns against retreating from peace

"We were sharing hopes, aspirations, fears and intentions regarding the region and its future," King Hussein said, upon receiving the delegation of the Israeli-American Committee for general affairs, expressing his grief for the problems facing the peace process. "I wish for peace to spread among the grandchildren of Abraham," he said.

King Hussein reviewed the efforts being made to realize peace in the Middle East.

"Following a good commencement in Madrid and Washington, the signing of peace accord between Jordan and Israel, and following the developments on Palestinian-Israel track, then the Oslo agreement, we had great expectations. Those were great steps towards achieving a comprehensive peace," he said.

"Frankly, we still hope that this peace will become true," he said, but, "Many things have taken place since then."

"There has been a minority among each side who would impose their agenda upon us; many tragedies took place in Hebron, Israel and the Palestinian territories," he said.

"We lost the deceased Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin, my partner in efforts to achieve peace between our two nations and peoples, " he stated. "Many more incidents took place. They created a different atmosphere from that we prepared before," he added. If those incidents had not taken place the situation would now be completely different, he said.

"Shall we surrender to those extremist short-sighted minorities who do not desire us to build what we really deserve?" he asked.

"Peace being achieved between Jordan and Israel has been between two peoples, I tried to make it so," he added.

"Peace must not be among politicians but it should be among people," he said.