Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi warned on Wednesday that an Israeli move to apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria would institutionalize apartheid.
Safadi, who spoke with the UN’s Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov, called on the international community to unite to halt the move.
“The decision will kill the two-state solution and fuel the conflict, margin the one-state option an inevitable fate, which the world cannot stay silent on, especially with the institutionalization of apartheid and racism,” Safadi said, according to JPost.
After the meeting with Mladenov, Safadi tweeted that he had spoken with the UN envoy on "efforts to prevent illegal annexation of occupied Palestinian land [and] to create horizon for talks to solve conflict on basis of [two]-state solution [and international] law. Protecting peace requires preventing annexation."
Mladenov tweeted that he had also meet with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri. He wrote that he had spoken with both him and Safadi "about the need to help all sides engage on resolving the [Israeli-Palestinian Arab] conflict on the basis of two states [and] avoid damaging unilateral action."
The coalition agreement between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, which stipulates that the government can apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria this coming July, has caused an uproar in the Arab world.
Jordanian Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz last week threatened that the kingdom would review its relationship with Israel if the Jewish state goes ahead with the sovereignty move.
"We will not accept unilateral Israeli moves to annex Palestinian lands and we would be forced to review all aspects of our relations with Israel," said Razzaz, who accused Israel of taking advantage of the world being "distracted" by the coronavirus crisis to implement "unilateral moves on the ground".
Razzaz’s comments came days after Jordan's King Abdullah II warned that if Israel goes through with the sovereignty move, “it would lead to a massive conflict with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan".
King Abdullah told German magazine Der Spiegel that "I don't want to make threats and create a loggerheads atmosphere, but we are considering all options."
Sources close to the regime in Jordan later predicted that if Israel applies sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, the Jordanian kingdom will not continue the security and economic ties with Israel in the way they have been conducted so far.
Jordan is one of only two Arab countries, along with Egypt, to have signed a peace deal with Israel. However, many Jordanians still see Israel as an enemy and protest what they view as “normalization” with the Jewish state.
In addition, the country’s parliament, which is made up mostly of Islamists, remains anti-Israel and its members have more than once called to annul the peace treaty.