Jordan renews passport of Hamas supremo

AMMAN: Jordan has renewed the passport of one of its most controversial nationals, Syria-based Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal.

"Khaled Meshaal submitted a request and his passport was renewed last week," government spokesman Nasser Jawdeh told a weekly news conference, playing down the move as a routine procedure.

Meshaal was among three officials of the ruling Palestinian movement - all Jordanian citizens - who were expelled from the kingdom in 1999 after being accused of threatening its security and stability.

Two years earlier, Jordan saved Meshaal's life when officers of Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence service carried out a botched attempt to poison him in Amman.

Then-king Hussein secured the antidote from Israel with a threat to sever the kingdom's 1994 peace treaty with the Jewish state.

Jordan has had a sometimes rocky relationship with Hamas, which does not recognise Israel and is boycotted as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States.

Earlier this year, Jordan said it had arrested 20 Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks in the kingdom and seized weapons including Iranian-made Katyusha rockets.

"We in Jordan deal with the Palestinian Authority, its government and its elected parliament and naturally Hamas is the majority in parliament and leads the Palestinian government," Jawdeh said.

A large percentage of Jordan's population are of Palestinian extraction.