by Hossam Ezzedine
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Aug 3 (AFP) - Palestinian premier Ahmed Qorei angrily denounced accusations Tuesday by Jordan's King Abdullah II that his government was shifting its demands and vowed to send a team to Amman for an explanation.
The king said in a television interview that more clarity was needed from the Palestinian leadership over its demands, both in terms of land and rights for refugees, in the peace process with the Israelis.
"We want the Palestinian leadership to declare clearly what it wants and not surprise us every now and then with some decisions or by accepting things that it did not accept before," he told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite news channel.
"In the beginning, the issue was about the return of 98 percent of occupied Palestinian territories, then it became about less than 50 percent of this land and we don't know what the percentage will be in a year or two.
"As for the (Palestinian) refugees, the issue was about return and compensation, then it became about the return of a small percentage of them."
An angry Qorei told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah that he was "greatly concerned" by the comments and said he would dispatch a high-level delegation to Amman for an explanation.
"We will form a Palestinian delegation, a senior delegation, to visit Jordan to talk about the reality," the prime minister said.
The premier also insisted that there was no confusion over the Palestinians' demands.
"The stable position of the Palestinian Authority is that we want a state within the borders of '67, a right of return for all refugees and compensation for those who don't want to return," he said.
Relations between Amman and the Palestinian leadership have often been tense, while a majority of Jordan's citizens are of Palestinian descent.
Jordan annexed the West Bank before its defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War between Arab countries and the Jewish state since when the territory has been occupied by Israel.
Abdullah's late father King Hussein only formally renounced Jordan's claim to the West Bank in July 1988, before signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
The Jordanian monarch said that the Middle East peace roadmap provided an opportunity that the Palestinians needed to seize if they were to obtain their promised state.
"The Palestinian leadership is now asked more than ever before to seize the opportunity to achieve peace through the roadmap," he said.
"The Palestinian leadership is requested to take decisions that would convince the world to deal with it as a leadership with a clear vision and a unified institutionalized authority," he said.
Reform would allow "the world to deal with it as a true partner for reaching a final settlement on the basis of the exchange of land for peace" enshrined in UN resolutions.
The internationally-backed roadmap was launched amid great fanfare in June 2003 at a summit in Jordan's Red Sea port city of Aqaba with the aim of creating a Palestinian state in 2005.
It has made next to no progress in the intervening period amid mutual recriminations between the Israelis and Palestinians.