Jordanian officials have arrested a number of Palestinian Hamas members, accusing them of plotting to use the smuggled weapons for attacks inside the country.
A royal palace statement after the meetings did not mention the smuggled weapons, saying only that Manouchehr Mottaki held separate sessions with King Abdullah II, Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit and Foreign Minister Abdul-Illah al-Khatib. The palace said the leaders discussed Iran's nuclear program, Mideast peacemaking and Iraq's sectarian strife, the AP reports.
While Jordan has not directly accused Iran of involvement with the large arms cache allegedly smuggled from Syria and discovered on April 18, it aired videotape last week of confessions by three detained Hamas activists that included shots of dozens of Katyusha rockets, some of them bearing Persian inscriptions. The television said the rockets were made in Iran.
The government also charged that Hamas had tried to recruit militants in the Palestinian territories and Jordan and send them to Syria and Iran for terrorist training.
Jordan said that more than 20 Hamas activists, who were detained after the weapons cache was found, were allegedly in the final phase of plotting attacks on targets in the kingdom under direct orders from exiled leaders of the militant Palestinian group in Syria.
Hamas is believed to receive Iranian support and carried out dozens of suicide attacks in Israel, before the militant group agreed to a truce and then surprisingly swept parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories.
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