Amman will not host Hamas offices: Jordan official

By Laith al-Junidi

AMMAN, Jordan (AA) - Hamas will not be allowed to open any offices in the Jordanian capital despite the group’s apparent reconciliation with rival Palestinian faction Fatah, a senior Jordanian official said Thursday.

“Hamas is a Palestinian [political] party,” the official, who spoke anonymously due to the issue’s sensitivity, told Anadolu Agency.

“Jordan’s political parties law prohibits non-Jordanian parties from opening branches on Jordanian territory,” he said.

Despite its sizeable Palestinian population, Jordan closed all Hamas offices countrywide in 1999.

Last week, Hamas and Fatah signed a landmark reconciliation agreement in Cairo.

The deal -- if it holds -- will allow the Ramallah-based Palestinian unity government to assume political and administrative responsibility for the Gaza Strip, which for the last ten years has been run by Hamas.

The Israeli-occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip have remained politically divided since 2007, when Hamas wrested control of the strip from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.

Hamas’s capture of Gaza in 2007 ended an earlier -- if short-lived -- unity government set up after Hamas swept 2006 Palestinian legislative elections.