With Amman displeased by Obama policies, Ambassador Wells, who was due to transition out this summer, was rotated out in March after King Abdullah asked for her swift replacement.
WASHINGTON — A career US diplomat who served as ambassador to Jordan under the Obama administration was pushed out of her role by President Donald Trump shortly after he took office, allegedly at the request of the nation’s king, Abdullah II, a US magazine reported on Wednesday.
The article, published in Foreign Policy, claims that Alice Wells had a tense relationship with Abdullah throughout the final stages of Obama’s nuclear talks with Iran. The king opposed the resulting deal in private, fearing it would embolden the Shi’ite power already deeply involved in the Syrian civil war spilling over Jordan’s northern border.
Amman was further displeased by Wells’ handling of a crisis over a Jordanian pilot who was abducted by Islamic State after his plane went down in Syria. “There was a feeling, on his part, that the US didn’t play the role it could have with search and rescue” for the pilot, a former senior US official told FP.
Foreign governments rarely request the replacement of an ambassador representing an ally. The report notes that Wells was due to transition out this summer, but instead left her post in March.
View original The Jerusalem Post publication at:
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Trump-pushed-out-US-envoy-to-Jordan-at-kings-request-503915
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