Jordan's king Abdallah II visits Moscow today

Jordan’s King Abdallah II will visit Moscow on Wednesday for talks with President Vladimir Putin on the Syrian crisis and “the fight against terrorism,” a palace statement said.

The two leaders will discuss “developments in the Middle East, especially the Syrian crisis and the peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians, Tuesday’s statement said.

Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi was also set to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday, the official Petra News Agency reported.The meetings come as Syrian regime and rebel delegates hold indirect peace talks in Kazakhstan, organized by regime backers Russia and Iran and rebel sponsor Turkey.

The three sponsors of the talks agreed Tuesday to



establish a joint “mechanism” to monitor the frail truce in Syria.Jordan has consistently called for a “comprehensive political solution” to the crisis in its northern neighbor that erupted in 2011.

Amman is one of the few Arab capitals that still has diplomatic relations with Damascus.

The two countries share a 370-km border, but Jordan closed the final crossing point in 2015 after rebels seized the Syrian side.It has also sealed its frontier with Iraq.

The Jordanian economy has been hard hit by the Syrian crisis, particularly the burden of hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria.The UN says it has registered 650,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan, but authorities say as many as 1.3 million are now living there.