AMMAN: Jordanian and US officials will meet at the Foreign Ministry premises in Amman on Monday to discuss "joint strategic cooperation", the pro-government daily newspaper Al-Rai reported on Sunday.
The discussions will cover "regional cooperation, regional stability, the situation in Iraq and the Middle East peace process", the paper quoted Foreign Ministry sources as saying.
The meeting follows talks in Washington on Friday between Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
It will be the first declared meeting between strategists from the two countries since Dec. 30, when a Jordanian physician, described by US media as double agent, blew himself up at a US forward operating base in Khost, Afghanistan, killing seven CIA officers and a Jordanian officer.
The attack, which Taleban said was carried out by Humam Balawi, was described by US media as a major setback for the CIA.
Meanwhile, the Jordanian government on Sunday came under vehement attack from the media for the first time for its avowed plan to continue its attack on Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The criticism was directed against Judeh who told a press conference in Washington on Friday that Jordan would go ahead with its cooperation with the United States in its endeavors to hunt Al-Qaeda leaders.
"We have been shocked to hear Judeh say that Jordan's presence in Afghanistan will be boosted in the forthcoming stage," Fahd Kheitan, managing editor of the independent daily Alarab Alyawm, said.
"After that suicide operation, it is difficult for the Jordanian public opinion to comprehend the foreign minister's statement regarding the reinforcement of the Jordanian presence in Afghanistan," he added.
"The war in Afghanistan is not ours and we should stop waging battles on behalf of others," Kheitan said.
