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Jordan Relations with Other Countries
In the years after independence, Jordan followed a generally
pro-Western foreign policy as a result of its special relationship
with Britain, to which the Hashimite Kingdom owed its existence and
which became the principal supplier of financial and other aid.
Jordan's special relationship with Britain ended, for all practical
purposes, in 1957, when the Anglo-Jordanian Treaty of 1948 was
terminated by mutual agreement. Thereafter, the United States
became actively involved in Jordan, replacing Britain as the
principal Western source of foreign aid and political support but
without treaty commitments. Nevertheless, Britain and Jordan
continued to maintain cordial relations. Hussein made annual
official visits to London to discuss Middle East policy. In 1984,
Queen Elizabeth II made the first trip ever by a British monarch to
Jordan. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher subsequently visited Amman
in 1985. During the 1980s, Britain again became a major weapons
supplier for Jordan. As of 1989, the most recent sale (in September
1988) was an agreement to provide Jordan with the advanced Tornado
aircraft.
In 1989 Jordan maintained friendly relations with the Soviet
Union. Amman first established relations with Moscow in 1963. Two
years later, Jordan signed its first cultural and technical
cooperation agreement with the Soviet Union. Hussein made his first
state visit to Moscow in the wake of the June 1967 War. Since then
there have been numerous exchanges of high-level visits, including
several official trips by Hussein. Jordan has purchased military
equipment from the Soviet Union periodically since 1980 as part of
a policy to diversify military supply sources. In 1985 Jordan
bought a major Soviet air defense system after the United States
Congress canceled a planned sale of Stinger antiaircraft missiles
to the country. Jordan and the Soviet Union have signed several
accords pertaining to cultural, economic, and scientific
cooperation. In his advocacy of an international peace conference
to deal with the occupied Palestinian territories, Hussein has
insisted that the Soviet Union be included.
In 1989 Jordan had friendly relations with most other
countries, including those in both Eastern Europe and Western
Europe. The major exception was Iran, with which Jordan had severed
diplomatic relations in 1981 as a demonstration of solidarity with
Iraq. The countries of the European Economic Community and Japan
were major sources of Jordan's imports. France also sold weapons to
Jordan, including twenty Mirage-2000 aircraft in 1988.
Data as of December 1989
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