Hamas politburo chief Khalid Meshaal will pay his first official visit to Jordan in 12 years next week, a senior Jordanian official saidon Tuesday. Mishaal is expected in Amman on Sunday along with Qatar's Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani and Minister of State for Media Affairs Rakan Majali said. Jordan expelled Meshaal and three other Hamas members to Qatar in 1999 after closing the Amman bureau of the hard-line Palestinian movement. The breakthrough in the stalemated relationship between Hamas and Amman came two months ago when the Jordanian Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh announced that the expulsion of Hamas from Jordan was both “a legal and constitutional mistake.” He referred to Meshaal and his colleagues as Jordanian citizens who were forced to leave their country in violation of the Jordanian constitution.
