JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel will this year double its supply of water to Jordan, Israeli officials said on Thursday after a meeting between the countries’ foreign ministers, adding that Amman’s exports to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank could also increase.
Jordan is a key security partner for Israel but relations have suffered in recent years over Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
Yair Lapid, foreign minister in a cross-partisan coalition that ousted conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government a month ago, said Israel would sell Jordan 50 million cubic metres of water this year.
An Israeli official said that would effectively double the supply for the year – measured between May 2021 and May 2022 – as around 50 million cubic metres was already being sold or given to Jordan. A Jordanian official said Israel gives the kingdom 30 million cubic metres annually under their 1994 peace treaty.
In a statement issued after he held a first meeting in Jordan with its foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, Lapid said the countries also agreed to explore increasing Jordan’s exports to the West Bank to $700 million a year, from $160 million now.
“The Kingdom of Jordan is an important neighbour and partner,” Lapid said. “We will broaden economic cooperation for the good of the two countries.”
(Writing by Dan Williams and Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Giles Elgood)
