Secretary Kerry will travel May 21 to Muscat, where he will meet with senior Omani officials to discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues.

On May 22, the Secretary will visit Amman, where he will meet with key international partners to further explore ways that the international community can work towards bringing together both sides of the conflict and developing a path toward a negotiated political solution to the crisis in Syria.

On May 23-24, Secretary Kerry will travel to Jerusalem and Ramallah. In Jerusalem, he will meet with Israeli leaders, and in Ramallah he will meet with the Palestinian leadership.

Secretary Kerry will then travel May 24-25 to Addis Ababa, where he will meet with senior Ethiopian officials to discuss bilateral issues and participate in the Golden Jubilee of the Organization of African Unity at the African Union Summit.

On May 26, Secretary Kerry will depart Addis Ababa and return to Amman, where he will participate in the World Economic Forum.

The Secretary will depart Amman and return to Washington on May 27.

About the Author: Colleen Curtis serves as Director of Digital Content at the White House.

President Obama today welcomed His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan to the White House, where the two leaders once again discussed the very urgent issues impacting that country, and the rest of the world.

President Obama met with the Jordanian leader last month on his trip to the Middle East, and this afternoon he thanked the King for his “extraordinary” hospitality, and praised his efforts to foster democratization, entrepreneurship and economic development inside Jordan. In remarks to the press before their bilateral meeting, the President said that he believes Jordan can be an “extraordinary model for effective governance in the region.”

But the main topic on today’s agenda was the ongoing crisis in Syria, including the impact it is having on Jordan, which has seen more than half a million refugees cross their border to escape the violence in their… more »

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry poses with Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and other Jordanian government officials after a lunch meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Amman on March 23, 2013. [State Department Photo/Public Domain]

This week, President Barack Obama is making the first trip of his second term; he will visit Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan March 20-23, 2013. The White House will beposting updates from the road and livestreaming several of the President’s events on whitehouse.gov/live, including:

Wednesday, March 20 (2:05 PM ET) — President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu hold a press conference at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem;

Thursday March 21 (11:00 AM ET) — President Obama delivers a speech at the Jerusalem Convention Center; and

Friday March 22 (11:45 AM ET) — President Obama and King Abdullah II of Jordan hold a press conference in… more »

About the Author: Julia Nesheiwat serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Energy Resources.

I recently had the pleasure to travel to Amman, Jordan, to attend the U.S.-Jordan Business Forum. My trip happened to fall over International Women’s Day, which gave me added incentive to engage on women’s issues while in country. Across the Jordanian energy sector, I came across a number of extraordinary women, including Barbara Broomell, the executive Director of the Arab Women’s Leadership Institute (AWLI), who are working to alleviate the pressures of a dire electricity crisis and to build a more sustainable energy future for all Jordanians and the region. I was particularly encouraged by the work of Jordan’s EDAMA Association, which seeks to create private sector partnerships to develop a viable clean energy sector in Jordan.

In the Department of State’s new Energy Resources… more »

About the Author: Lee Satterfield serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cultural and Professional Exchanges in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Last week in Jordan, 50 women from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, Yemen and the United States came together to map out ways in which they could use the TechWomen network to encourage more women and girls to pursue professions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM).

TechWomen is a program sponsored by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs that pairs emerging women leaders in technology from the Middle East and North Africa with leading American women from the Silicon Valley area, using technology as a means to empower women and girls.… more »

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. on February 13, 2013. A text transcript can be found at http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/02/204560.htm

About the Author: Caroline Raclin is a Special Assistant in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) at the U.S. Department of State. She traveled with a joint State Department-USAID delegation to Turkey, Jordan, and Kuwait January 22-31, 2013.

It was near midnight. We were driving in the desert with no headlights, and Syria was 20 feet to my left. To the right was a mass of shapes — it took me a minute to realize I was looking at 850 Syrians who had just crossed safely into Jordan. One man was carrying designer luggage normally seen in airplane cabins; one girl had no shoes. I walked amongst these scared, war-numbed people, and it hit me that this was only a tiny portion of those leaving Syria.

Roughly 763,000 people have fled Syria — 240,000 to Jordan — and an estimated 2.5 million are displaced internally. Before that night, those numbers seemed horrific, but had little real meaning to me. They are round statistics, indicators of an escalating war. But after hearing a woman recall her husband’s death and a family describe their village being leveled by barrels of explosives, I better understood the scale… more »

Syrians Transition to Safety in Jordan

More: Responding in Times of Crisis — Syria

On January 27 and 28, 2013, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne C. Richard, and USAID Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance Nancy Lindborg visited Syrian refugees in Jordan. They visited the Zaatari refugee camp, a refugee processing center at a Syria-Jordan border crossing, and a food voucher distribution center.

The United States is committed to helping the innocent children, women, and… more »

About the Author: Robert S. Ford serves as U.S. Ambassador to Syria.

I am pleased to announce that I’ll be visiting the region this week with colleagues from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. We’ll visit Turkey and Jordan to see the conditions of Syrian refugees.

At the same time, we’ll sit with governments, international organizations and NGOs working to help the Syrian refugees.

I also hope to have the opportunity to meet with many Syrians and hear directly from them about their circumstances.

Last week, when I was in Jordan, I was watching television and I saw a report on Al Arabiya about a Syrian father and his daughter, a young child, who died from the bitter cold — a very tragic story that affected me deeply. I shared this story when I returned to Washington, and I think… more »