Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal on Jan 29 made his first official visit to Jordan since the kingdom expelled him more than a decade ago and held talks with King Abdullah. Meshaal was accompanied by Qatar’s Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. The visit was planned before an uprising erupted in Syria, where Hamas has had its main headquarters outside the Gaza Strip. Both Hamas and Jordan have denied that the Islamist movement may move its headquarters from Damascus, where many of its Jordanian leadership relocated after being expelled from the kingdom in 1999. The Syrian conflict has forced Hamas to move some of its activists and families out of the country. “The talk about the visit preceded the events in Syria and is not linked,” Izzat Risheq, a senior Hamas official, said.
Hamas and Jordanian officials said neither side discussed reopening the Hamas office in Jordan. Diplomatic and intelligence sources say Meshaal, 55, who has been based in Damascus since 2001, has effectively abandoned those headquarters, where he had seen relative safety following a botched Israeli attempt on his life in the 1990s.