JORDAN SLAMS ISRAEL: King Abdallah speaks to Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Amman on Friday. (AFP)

AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdallah warned Israel of “disastrous repercussions” if it crosses the “red line” on Jerusalem, in talks on Friday with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

“Jerusalem is a red line and any manipulation in this city would have disastrous repercussions on the security and stability of the region,” he said, quoted in a palace statement.

“Abdallah urged the world community, particularly the European Union, to take an effective action against unilateral Israeli measures which seek to change the identity of the holy city and the sacred shrines there,” the statement added.

King Abdallah warned that East Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, represented “a red line undermining of which will lead to catastrophic consequences on the region’s security and stability and on current efforts that seek to accomplish comprehensive peace.”

The Jordanian head of state praised the EU’s commitment to the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said that Jordan looked forward “to work closely with Spain to achieve this goal when it takes up the EU presidency in January.”

Zapatero visited Jordan as part of a regional tour aimed at paving the ground for his country to assume the rotating EU presidency at the beginning of 2010.