Jordan Might Need 70m. Dollars To Back Regime

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28269, 6 May 1957, Page 9

Jordan Might Need 70m. Dollars To Back Regime

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 5. Jordan officials have estimated that the United States might have to give their country 70m. dollars to sustain the proWestern Government installed as a result of last month’s crisis, the United Press reported today from Amman. Officials said that the 10m. dollars America had already given Jordan would last no more than two months. The 70m. dollar estimate was twice the amount of the British military subsidy that Jordan lost by cancelling the British and Jordan defence treaty.

(Rec. 10 p.m.) AMMAN, May 4. Jordan will take over Mafraq airbase from British forces at the end of May, the Jordan Government announced today. The announcement said that the Government would announce the evacuation of the remaining British troops in due course.

Reliable sources said that the last British soldier would evacuate Jordan during the middle of July.

Mafraq is north of Amman, near the Syrian border.

Another announcement paid that a £702,000 instalment of the £4,250,000 payment Jordan had agreed to pay Britain for British equipment left in the country by departing troops had not been paid because the dismissed Government of Mr Suleiman Nabulsi had not made prevision for it in the budget. The Jordan fore had asked for the 'postpone- - ment of the payment while it sought a solution to the problem. The communique said that Mr Nabulsi’s Government also had not made a provision for ,an additional £350,000 which Jordan was supposed to pay.

The Jordan Government ordered an extension of the current school vacations until further notice, as the schools had been the cause of in Jordan.

The Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr Salah El Bitar, said today that Syria was making inquiries into the meaning of Turkish troop concentrations on the Syrian border. Beirut Radio reported.