King Abdullah: Jordan will remain an active part of the Arab nation, New government formed
A royal decree was issued in Amman on Thursday on forming the new Jordanian government under the chairmanship of Abdul Raouf al-Rawabdeh (60).
The following are the names of the new cabinet ministers:
Abdul Raouf al-Rawbdeh premier and defense minister; Marwan al-Hammoud, the deputy premier; Rima al-Khalaf, deputy premier and minister of planning; Ayman al-Majali deputy premier; Ishaq Maraqa minister of health; Hosni Abu Gheida minister of public works and housing; Nasser al- Louzi minister of information and culture; Abd al-Ilah al-Khatib the foreign minister, Michael Martu, minister of finance; Nayef al-Qadi, minister of the interior; Eid al-Fayez, minister of labor; Hamzeh Haddad, minister of justice; Ezat Jaradat, minister of education; Mahmoud Asfour, minister of trade and industry; Aqel Beltaji, minister of tourism and antiquities; Abdul Salam al-Abbadi, minister of al-Awqaf (Islamic trust) and Islamic shrines; Jamal al-Sareyrah, minister of transport; Kamel Mahein, minister of water and irrigation; Suleiman Abu Aleim the minister of energy; Muhammad Kheir Mamsar, minister of youth, Tawfiq Kreishan, minister of rural areas, municipality and the environment; Faisal al-Rafou, minister of administrative development; and Hashem al-Shabboul, minister of social development and agriculture.
The new Jordanian government, which includes some 8 members from the previous government of Fayez Tarawneh, took its oath before the Jordanian King Abdullah Bin al-Hussein.
The Jordanian King asserted that Jordan was and will be always an active part of the Arab nation and a "main tributary of the Arab working efforts in seeking continuously to achieve reconciliation, to maintain constructive cooperation relations between all Arab countries and to eliminate reasons behind differences on the grounds of common Arab objectives and destiny."
In the book he addressed on Thursday to Abdul Raouf al-Rawabdeh to assign him to form the new Jordanian government, the Jordanian King said, "We assert that our relations with our all Arab brothers will be based on amity, confidence, cooperation, and mutual respect," calling upon the new government to "continue dialogue with all Arab countries with no exceptions."
The Jordanian king asserted Jordan's firm stand in backing "our brothers" in Syria and Lebanon to restore their occupied lands. He also stressed continued efforts to lift the suffering of the Iraqi people and the sieges imposed on Iraq, Libya and Sudan.
The new Jordanian prime minister started his career at the Ministry of Health after he had graduated from the faculty of pharmacy in the American University in Beirut in 1961. In 1974 Al-Rawabdeh was appointed as the minister of communications in the government of Mudar Badran and the minister of public works and housing in the government of Badran in 1989.
He has also acquired several ministerial and other high-ranking posts in Jordan.
He has been a member of the Jordanian Parliament for Irbid province since 1989. At the beginning of the 1990s he formed al-Yaqaza party and became its secretary general until the party merged with other Jordanian parties under the name of the "Constitutional National Party."
Al-Rawabdeh resigned from the said parties and its all affiliated to private and public commissions in 1998. He is married and the father of nine daughters and one son.