Senior US officials make quiet stops in Iraq, Jordan

US President Joe Biden’s top White House adviser on the Middle East is in the region as part of a trip to patch up widening rifts between traditional allies of Washington.

Brett McGurk, the White House National Security Council’s Middle East policy coordinator, has made stops in Iraq and Jordan over the last 24 hours, according to sources familiar with his travel.

He is also expected to head the delegation to Israel in the coming days, sources told Al Arabiya English. Jordan’s Royal Hashemite Court said that McGurk met with King Abdullah II to discuss “means of enhancing strategic partnership” between Washington and Amman.

The state-run Petra news agency reported that McGurk met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. Amos Hochstein, Biden’s special coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security, was also in the meeting.

Hochstein had already been in the region after taking part in the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi.

Petra reported that the talks between the American officials and Safadi tackled regional issues, including in Palestine and Syria, the fight against terrorism, and support for Iraq and Lebanon.

“Safadi underlined Washington’s central and leading role in efforts to breathe new life into the Palestinian-Israeli peace process to solve the conflict on the basis of the two-state solution and in line with the international law and approved references,” Petra said.

Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said the US officials were in Amman as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to get Jordan to join the Negev Forum and concerns over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Last week, around 150 officials from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco and the UAE attended the American-led Negev Forum summit, which the Biden administration created as it looks to continue the progress made by the Trump administration on peace efforts between Israel and its neighbors.