Syria’s controversial envoy says got one-year service extension

World Bulletin / News Desk

Syria’s controversial Ambassador in Jordan Bahjat Suleiman has asserted that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had extended by one year his tenure in Jordan.

“A presidential decree signed by the president extended my service in Jordan for one more year,” Suleiman, known for the verbal fights he picks with Jordanian politicians, wrote on his Facebook page.

Suleiman’s tenure in Jordan should have come to an end in May this year, but the extension would allow him to stay in the Hashemite kingdom until May 2015, a Jordanian Foreign Ministry source said.

Earlier this month, Jordanian media cited remarks attributed to Suleiman in which he described Jordanian lawmaker Abdullah Obeidat as an “impertinent, vulgar nobody.”

The statement came one day after the lawmaker had criticized Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who, Obeidat had said, was “damned by God.”

Obeidat said that the Jordanian government is set to expel Syrian ambassador Bahgat Soliman. The Jordanian Parliament also issued a statement condemning the Syrian ambassador’s alleged comments as “an infringement on diplomatic boundaries… by a sister state.”