{"id":20183,"date":"2018-10-28T22:24:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T22:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20183"},"modified":"2018-10-28T22:24:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-28T22:24:10","slug":"iran-backlash-after-top-cleric-meets-reformists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20183","title":{"rendered":"Iran backlash after top cleric meets reformists"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nDAMASCUS\/JABER: Jordanians are flocking to the Syrian capital Damascus for the first time in years for tourism and trade after the reopening of a border crossing that had been closed through years of war.
The border opened to people and goods on Oct. 15, restoring a route that had carried billions of dollars in trade for the region.
\u201cThe first day that Syria opened up, I came. This is my second time since then,\u201d said Mahmoud Nassar, 62, a flight engineer from Jordan\u2019s northern city of Ramtha.
\u201cThis is a visit of tourism and of yearning for (Damascus),\u201d said Nassar, who drove in with his father and son. \u201cThe road is safe and there were no problems.\u201d
Syrian government forces retook the border region with Jordan from rebels in July during a Russian-backed offensive.
The crossing had been closed since rebels captured it in 2015, though many are making the trip for the first time since 2011, when the Syrian conflict first erupted.
The Jordanian side of the frontier was jammed with vehicles waiting to cross on Friday. \u201cWhat we see is the situation is good, things are fine,\u201d said Razzan Al-Hattab, a Jordanian waiting to cross. \u201cI love Sham (Damascus), so I wanted to be one of the first to try going in a tourist group.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI WILL VISIT EVERY WEEK\u201c
The closure of the border has hit both the Syrian and Jordanian economies. \u201cBefore the border closed, our work was great,\u201d said Jawad Al-Zoubi, waiting to cross. But for \u201cthe last seven years, we\u2019ve not been able to pay school fees,\u201d he said.
Bahjat Rizik, in Damascus with his wife and son, said the last time he made the three-hour drive from Amman was before the war began. He used to bring office furniture to sell in Syria and owned a gallery in the Yarmouk district near Damascus.
\u201cI will visit every week,\u201d said Rizik, carrying bags of children\u2019s clothes and spices with his family.
\u201cGod willing, we can get back to work.\u201d
Bilal Bashi, who runs a company selling abayas in Damascus, said he had seen more Jordanian tourists and shoppers since the crossing opened. \u201cNo doubt there will be an economic (boost). It will have a positive effect,\u201d he said at the historic Souk Al-Hamidieh market in the Old City of Damascus.
Still, Raed Maseh, another Syrian trader, said the increase in Jordanian visitors had not had a real impact yet and hoped more people would come.
The Syrian war further added to the strain on an already difficult relationship between Damascus and Amman. US-allied Jordan provided support to some of the insurgents fighting President Bashar Assad.
But diplomatic ties were not severed entirely and Syria\u2019s relations with Jordan never turned as hostile as they did with some other regional states, notably Turkey which remains a major backer of the opposition.
Intisar Murshid, the head of a Damascus hotel, said she received some 14 Jordanian guests on the first day the crossing opened. They came to shop, work, or visit relatives.
\u201cFor eight years we did not see Jordanians, very rarely.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAMASCUS\/JABER: Jordanians are flocking to the Syrian capital Damascus for the first time in years for tourism and trade after the reopening of a border crossing that had been closed through years of war.The border opened to people and goods on Oct. 15, restoring a route that had carried billions of dollars in trade for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}