Bahjat Talhouni (; 1913 – January 30, 1994) was a

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

ian

political figure A politician is a person who participates in policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles or duties tha ...

. He served as the 14th

Prime Minister of Jordan The prime minister of Jordan is the head of government of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The prime minister is appointed by the List of kings of Jordan, king of Jordan, who is then free to form his own Cabinet of Jordan, Cabinet. Th ...

between 1960 and 1970 for six different terms. Talhouni was Prime Minister from August 1969 to June 1970, during a particularly turbulent time of friction and skirmishes between the Government and thousands of Palestinian guerrillas who were then in

. The Palestinian guerrillas, members of various organizations, frequently disregarded Jordanian laws and came to be almost a state within a state. In February 1970, King Hussein of Jordan met with their leaders at Talhouni's house in Amman. At that meeting the King agreed not to enforce restrictions on the Palestinians carrying firearms in Jordanian towns, and the leaders of the guerrillas promised to try to make their followers less unruly. A strained and often interrupted truce ensued. Then came an unsuccessful attempt on the King's life in June. Angered, the Jordanian Army called loudly for a crackdown on the

Palestinians Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenou ...

. But as a biographer of the King, Peter Snow, wrote in 1972, "Talhouni wavered; like Hussein, he was not eager to be responsible for the order that could lead to wide-scale bloodshed." Late in June 1970, the King replaced Talhouni with a new Prime Minister, Abdel Moneim Rifai, a champion of reconciliation with the Palestinians. But skirmishes between the Army, which stayed loyal to the King, and the Palestinians escalated into civil war in September 1970. The King let the Army crush the fighters, and by the following summer they had been nullified as a military force in Jordan. In addition to serving as Prime Minister, over the years Talhouni held the posts of

Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

and of

Justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

, chief of the Royal Court, and served as a legislator and personal representative of the King. He was born in

Ma'an Ma'an () is a city in southern Jordan, southwest of the capital Amman. It serves as the capital of the Ma'an Governorate. Its population was approximately 41,055 in 2015. Civilizations with the name of Ma'an have existed at least since the Nab ...

, in what is now southern Jordan, and studied law in Syria. He served as president of the Court of Appeals in Amman before becoming Minister of the Interior in 1953. He served as the President of the Senate of Jordan from December 1974 to January 1983. Talhouni died on January 30, 1994, as announced by the Jordanian Government announced. He was 81.

References

External links

Prime Ministry of Jordan website
1913 births 1994 deaths People from Ma'an Governorate Prime ministers of Jordan Justice ministers of Jordan Interior ministers of Jordan Ministers of foreign affairs of Jordan Defence ministers of Jordan Jordanian judges Members of the Senate of Jordan Presidents of the Senate of Jordan Recipients of the Order of The Star of Jordan Recipients of the Order of Independence (Jordan) Recipients of Supreme Order of the Renaissance (Jordan) {{Jordan-politician-stub

See also

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External links