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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now since the Arab Spring began about 18 months ago, it has seen leaders deposed in Tunisia, exiled from Yemen, imprisoned in Egypt and murdered in Libya. Protestors have made their mark and presidents have become pariahs. One country that has escaped much of this though is Jordan, even though most of the power is still in the hands of the King. I am joined now from New York by the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Nasser Judeh. A very good morning to you, Foreign Minister. On the basis of that introduction, you have a King there still with huge, some say absolute power and being very slow, your critics say, to adopt real democratic change.

NASSER JUDEH: Well good morning to you, Dermot. First of all I disagree with the premise, I agree with a lot of what you said but with the premise that the King is an absolute monarch because we have institutions, we have a parliament, we have elections, we have a government that is accountable and answerable to parliament but I think one thing that makes things different in Jordan than what you saw in other countries is that there is such an consensus over the monarchy and I think three very important reasons to bear in mind as to why Jordan has not been like other countries is that our reform process was already underway when the Arab Spring began, secondly we dealt with it in a different way, it was a gentle breeze. Of course Jordan was affected with the general mood but there was no violence and thirdly, there are results to show for what we’re saying. You have now a date for elections by the end of this year, you have constitutional amendments, you have benchmarks that have been by and large met.

DM: But within that, what you’re saying, are you suggesting that having seen, the Jordanian population having seen some of the chaos that has ensued in other countries, they have rallied around the King and the monarchy?

NJ: Jordanians have always rallied around the monarchy, one thing that all Jordanians unite on is the monarchy and our contemporary political history is 91 years old, 92 today actually, we celebrate the 92nd year of modern Jordan. The same political system for the same 92 years. Maybe we changed in name before ’46 when we were an Emirate and after ’46 when we became a Kingdom but it is the same parliamentary hereditary monarchy and I think that is the one consensual point.

DM: Parliamentary and hereditary you mentioned but not constitutional, are you heading ultimately in that direction? Is that where King Abdullah wants to take it?

NJ: We are a constitutional monarchy, the King is the guarantor of the constitution but where King Abdullah wants to take the country forward in the next phase is to have representative parliamentary government. That’s where we’re heading.

DM: Just to explain to people, for the relationship to change, rather than the King being able to dismiss parliament they have to be able to dismiss him.

NJ: Well that changed by the way last year. There are a certain set of parameters that have to be set and the King’s power to dismiss parliament has been vastly reduced. Don’t forget last year at the initiative of the King, one third of our constitution was revised and amended and that is quite an historical milestone.

DM: So you disagree with those critics who say that the pace of democratic change is not fast enough but those critics also say that the reason for it is that the West has eased the pressure on Jordan because you are such a key ally in the region and in particular with what’s going on across your border in Syria.

NJ: Jordan has always been geo-strategically important and I don't think it is a question of a report card by the West or anybody else if Jordan is doing okay and should we ease pressure off Jordan. I think what we do in Jordan is for Jordan’s sake but that’s one point. The second point that I have to tell you is that it is not a question of the pace of reform, the speed, it’s not the need for speed, it’s the need for steady progress on the reform front and I think that’s what we have been doing. You can sit there and decide to have political reforms in three months or you can have a steady process that has been taking place for many years now but speeded up and with fresh impetus because of the Arab Spring and you have benchmarks that have been met. I think when the King says, when the government says, when parliament is now debating elections, when we say at the end of the year there is going to be elections that will produce parliamentary governments, more representative governments, we are very confident in what we say. Yes, of course, we have geo-strategic considerations to bear in mind all the time, this has been the history of Jordan. There is always a war in the region, there’s always instability but I think when we look inwards we are very, very comfortable.

DM: I mentioned Syria, looking across the border at the terrible human rights abuses taking place there, is it Jordan’s view that President Assad must go eventually?

NJ: Well we have always said what the Syrians decide is up to the Syrians but we are part of the international community, we are a country that borders Syria, we have 122,000 Syrian refugees that have flocked into Jordan since the events began in Syria, we of course have a long border that divides villages at times, that’s how close the two countries are geographically. We are reliant on Syria actually for a lot of our input, 62% of our input comes by land through Syria so it is not reliance on Syria itself but reliance on the conduit of our inputs through Syria, so we are affected politically or geo-strategically or even demographically now with the influx of refugees, so what happens in Syria is very, very important. DM: You mentioned those refugees having a huge economic effect on Jordan and I know you are asking for international help in terms of dealing and helping them.

NJ: We are indeed. I had excellent meetings with the High Commissioner for Refugees a couple of days ago in Amman, he went up to the north, to the border area. He met with Syrians that have come in over the last period. Like I said, we are talking and I spoke yesterday evening on arrival in New York with the Secretary General of the United Nations on the telephone. We are talking to everybody, we are talking to our friends bilaterally also. I think this is a situation that needs to be addressed. As it is Jordan’s economy is already strained, we have our fair share of the refugee situation over many years, Palestinian refugees, Iraqi refugees and now Syrians and I think the time has come for the world to look at that problem seriously. Of course Jordan has always been a haven and we welcome people with open arms, we share with them what little we have but we do it anyway and people come to Jordan for the comfort of knowing that they are in a stable country.

DM: So ideally placed to look at the events in Syria up close and personal, so to speak. What is your analysis, how do you see things developing over the coming months? Do you think for instance that the current UN plan led by Kofi Annan has some more legs in it or are things leading inevitably towards some form of civil conflict?

NJ: Well I really hope that we don’t see Syria sliding towards more instability and what is spoken about in terms of a civil war, God forbid. The only game in town is the Kofi Annan plan but so far we have seen one component being addressed which is the end of violence and the monitors but there is a political component to Kofi Annan’s plan that needs to kick in at some stage in order for the political process to begin and for the Syrians to manage this process and manage whatever transition is going to happen. We had a meeting of the core group of Foreign Ministers in Istanbul a few days ago and I think we are all clear, there was a statement issued that everybody is watching the next two, three weeks, there is going to be another core group meeting probably and then the milestone of the end of the Kofi Annan mission in the middle of July, will it be renewed or will it not be renewed and will it have achieved some success or traction on the ground between now and then? If it hasn’t then we’ve got a problem. I think everybody is keen also in including, having an inclusive process, having the Russians and the Chinese on board and talking about the future of Syria and I think we all agree that it is up to the Syrian people at the end of the day but as countries that happen to be bordering Syria we are all affected by it.

DM: Okay Mr Judeh, thank you very much indeed. The Jordanian Foreign Minister there speaking to us live from New York.