Jordan yesterday said it is willing to swap an Iraqi woman it is holding on death row for a Jordanian pilot captured in December last year by extremists from the Islamic State group.
The statement by Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani made no mention of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, who is also being held by the Islamic State group.
Efforts to release the Jordanian pilot and the journalist gained urgency with the release late on Tuesday of a purported online ultimatum claiming the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, would kill both hostages within 24 hours if the Iraqi woman was not freed.
Photo: Reuters
Yesterday, al-Momani said in a statement that “Jordan is ready to release the Iraqi prisoner, Sajida al-Rishawi, if the Jordanian pilot, Lieutenant Muath al-Kaseasbeh, is released unharmed.”
His comments were carried by Jordan’s official Petra news agency.
Al-Rishawi was sentenced to death in Jordan for her involvement in a 2005 terrorist attack by al-Qaeda on hotels in Amman that killed 60 people.
Jordan is reportedly in indirect talks with the militants through religious and tribal leaders in Iraq to secure the hostages’ release.
The chairman of the foreign affairs committee of Jordan’s parliament, Bassam al-Manasseer, has been quoted as saying that Jordan and Japan would not negotiate directly with the Islamic State group and would not free al-Rishawi for the Japanese hostage only.
Earlier yesterday, the mother of the Japanese hostage, Kenji Goto, publicly appealed to Japan’s prime minister to save her son.
Goto’s mother, Junko Ishido, read to reporters her plea to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which she said she sent after both Abe and Japan’s main government spokesman declined to meet with her.
“Please save Kenji’s life,” Ishido said, begging Abe to work with the Jordanian government until the very end to try to save Goto.
“Kenji has only a little time left,” she said.
The Jordanian government is under growing pressure at home to win the release of the pilot.
Safi al-Kaseasbeh, the pilot’s father, beseeched his government late on Tuesday “to meet the demands” of the Islamic State group.
“All people must know, from the head of the regime to everybody else, that the safety of Mu’ath means the stability of Jordan, and the death of Mu’ath means chaos in Jordan,” he said.
About 200 of the pilot’s relatives protested outside the prime minister’s office in Amman, chanting anti-government slogans and urging that it meet the captors’ demands.
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