AMMAN/BAGHDAD, 13 June 2008 — Jordanian King Abdallah held talks yesterday with the visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and pledged Jordan would extend all possible help to the Iraqi government to enable it restore security and stability to the violence-torn country.

“Jordan puts all its capabilities in support of the Iraqi government in its endeavors to maintain security and stability in Iraq and safeguard its unity and future,” a royal court statement quoted the monarch as telling the premier.

However, Abdallah stressed the need for “involving all components of the Iraqi people in the country’s political process” in order the government’s efforts turn out to be a success.

He told Al-Maliki that the Jordanian government’s decision to name a new ambassador to Iraq “reflected Amman’s keenness on forging strong ties with Iraq.”

The Jordanian government has said that it has plans to name a new envoy in Baghdad but the Minister of State for Information Affairs and Communication Nasser Judeh pointed out that sending a diplomat to Baghdad would hinge on securing protection for the Jordanian diplomatic mission there.

The Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad was the scene of a fatal bombing in August 2003 that was blamed on the Jordanian fugitive Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US airstrike inside Iraq in June 2006.

On his part, Al-Maliki briefed the king on “latest developments in Iraq and the efforts being exerted by the Iraqi government to restore its authority on all parts of Iraq and unify Iraqi ranks,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, blocs from across Iraq’s political and sectarian spectrum are expected to announce a new alliance in the next days that will work as a united front in Parliament against sectarianism and in favor of a sovereign Iraq with an Arab and Islamic identity, a lawmaker said in Baghdad yesterday.

The front is a coalition of political groups, such as the Shiite religious Islamic Fadila and Sadr Bloc as well as the secular Iraqi List and the Sunni Arab Bloc for Dialogue, Iraqi member of Parliament, Osama Al-Nujaifi, told the Voices of Iraq news agency.

“Those parties, which are not represented in cabinet, will form an opposition front in parliament that will oversee government’s performance in a constructive way,” Nujaifi said.

The new alliance will work for a national rather than sectarian Iraq and will seek to end foreign occupation, the lawmaker said.