President Barack Obama made a last-minute detour on his way out of Washington on Wednesday to greet Jordan’s King Abdullah, after originally planning to skip meeting with the close ally.
The White House had cited preparations for his State of the Union speech for preventing a more formal sit-down earlier in the week and indicated there were plans to meet in the near future.
One of Obama’s chief foreign policy critics took issue with his decision not to receive a key figure from a region currently topping the list of U.S. international concerns.
“I think at every opportunity, the President should grasp it to show his support for King Abdullah and his thanks for all that he’s done for us,” Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “The Situation Room” Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the White House announced that an unscheduled meeting had been held after all.
Obama walked from his Marine One helicopter on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews to the passenger lounge, where Abdullah was awaiting his own flight from the military installation later in the day.
The meeting lasted less than five minutes. Obama emerged shortly after entering the building and boarded Air Force One, which was soon airborne and headed to Omaha, Nebraska, where he is due to deliver a speech on the economy.
Obama and Abdullah have met often in the past to discuss issues like counter-terrorism and the war on ISIS, and U.S. officials consistently say Jordan remains a top U.S. ally in the region.
But despite those close ties, the White House wasn’t able to schedule formal bilateral talks between the two leaders during the monarch’s visit to Washington this week. Abdullah did meet with Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday and Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Monday.
“As I think you can understand, there’s quite a bit going on today,” White House Communications Director Jen Psaki told Blitzer Tuesday.
“The Vice President of the United States met with him. But Jordan remains an important partner on really important issues like fighting ISIL, and I wouldn’t read too much into it, beyond the fact that today’s the State of the Union,” Psaki said, using another name for ISIS. Earlier this week a senior administration official told CNN that Obama “regrets” that a meeting couldn’t be scheduled this week.
A senior Jordanian official said, “it had been agreed upon earlier that a meeting with the President will be arranged during an upcoming visit, likely to take place within the coming month or two and not during this visit.”