WASHINGTON, March 7: Jordan's King Abdullah on Wednesday called on the United States to help end the `bitter legacy of disappointment and despair’ in the Palestinian territories and to `take risks’ to help achieve a lasting Middle East peace.

“Sixty years of Palestinian dispossession -- forty under occupation -- a stop-and-go peace process, all this has left a bitter legacy of disappointment and despair, on all sides,” the Jordanian leader told a joint session of the US Congress.

“It is time to create a new and different legacy, one that begins now, one that can set a positive tone for the American and Middle East relationship,” he said.

“It begins with courage and vision,” King Abdullah declared. “We must all of us take risks for peace.”

In his speech, he invoked the memory of his father King Hussein, who also worked feverishly for Middle East peace, in talks with Israel's then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Those efforts brought King Hussein to Washington in 1994 on a similar peace mission in 1994, King Abdullah noted.“Thirteen years later that work is still not completed,” he told the US lawmakers in a speech peppered with ovations from the members of Congress.

“Until it is, we are all at risk. We are all at risk of being victims of further violence resulting from ideologies of terror and hatred,” he said.

“It is our greatest and most urgent duty to prevent such dangers to our region, to your country and to the world,” he said.

Abdullah added that as long as violence rages in the Middle East, there remain a strong likelihood that unrest will “ricochet” throughout the region and throughout the rest of the world.

The Jordanian ruler stressed however that “a lasting peace can only be built on understanding, agreement and compromise,” and cannot be “imposed by one side.” The United States, he said, will perforce play a central role in whatever breakthrough ultimately is achieved in the region, Abdullah said.

“The people of the region still regard the United States as the key to peace, the one country most capable of bringing the two sides closer together, holding them accountable and making a just settlement reality,” he said.

“Your responsibility is paramount,” said Abdullah. “Your potential to help Palestinians and the Israelis find peace is unrivalled.”—AFP