Jordan said on Sunday that Israel has asked for consultations on a special land deal agreed upon in their 1994 peace treaty that the Jordanian government wants to end.
Under the peace treaty, two border areas were recognized as being under Jordanian sovereignty but Israel was given special provisions to use the land and Israelis were allowed free access.
Jordan formally notified Israel two weeks ago it would not renew the 25-year deal over the two areas, Baqura in the north, where the Yarmouk River flows into the Jordan River, and Ghumar in the southern Wadi Araba desert, where Israeli farmers have large plantations.
After the decision, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said the kingdom was waiting for Israel to invoke a provision in the peace treaty that enables consultations to be held after notice is given and before the deadline.
The Petra state news agency quoted government spokeswoman Jumana Ghunaimat as saying that Jordan had received the Israeli request, but she did not say when the discussions would begin.
After Jordan's announcement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would seek to enter negotiations on the possibility of extending the arrangement.
The arrangement was to be automatically renewed unless either of the parties notified the other a year before expiry that it wished to terminate the agreement.
Safadi said the deal, signed in November 1994, had been conceived as a temporary arrangement from the start. The kingdom had contemplated the move for a while before the Nov. 10 deadline.
King Abdullah said the territories were Jordanian lands and would remain so, and that the move was made in the "national interest" at a period of regional turmoil.
Jordan is one of only two Arab states (the other being Egypt) that has a peace treaty with Israel, and the two countries have a long history of close security ties. But the treaty is unpopular in Jordan, where pro-Palestinian sentiment is widespread.
