Jordan's King Abdullah II said Arab states would come to Washington with a counterproposal to U.S. President Donald Trump's provocative plans to annex Gaza, who repeated his calls as the two met on Tuesday.
King Abdullah has previously said he rejects any moves to annex land and displace Palestinians.
Asked on Tuesday about taking in Palestinians, he said he had to do what is best for his country, and said Arab nations would come to Washington with a counterproposal.
"The point is how to make this work in a way that is good for everybody," he said, without explicitly supporting or opposing Trump's plan.
He was expected to tell Trump such a move could spur radicalism, spread chaos in the region, jeopardize peace with Israel and threaten the country's very survival.
Abdullah was asked repeatedly about Trump's audacious plan to remake the Middle East, but didn't make substantive comments on it nor the idea that his country could accept large numbers of new refugees from Gaza.
The king said that Egypt would present a plan to work with the U.S. over Washington's Gaza takeover proposal, as he met Donald Trump.
President Trump "is looking at Egypt coming to present that plan. As I said, we will be in Saudi Arabia to discuss how we should work with the president and with the United States."
"Let's wait until the Egyptians can come and present it to the president."
He also told Trump that his country was ready to take in some 2,000 sick children from war-torn Gaza.
"I think one of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children, cancer children who are in a very ill state, that is possible," Abdullah said as Trump welcomed him and Crown Prince Hussein in the Oval Office.
Trump said that he would "take" the besieged Gaza Strip under U.S. authority.
The president continued to insist that he would implement his widely-panned proposal to take ownership of Gaza, saying "We’re going to run it very properly."
"We’re going to take it, we’re going to hold it, we’re going to cherish it," Trump said of the coastal enclave. "We'll have lots of good things built there, including hotels and office buildings and housing and other things, and we'll make that site into what it should be."
Trump demurred when asked about his previous threats to withhold U.S. aid if they decline to resettle the roughly 2 million Palestinians that the president plans to displace under his ownership proposal.
"I think we'll do something. I don't have to threaten that, I do believe we're above that," Trump said.
He noted that he would not personally develop property in Gaza.
Three out of four Americans – 74% – in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Feb. 7-9 said they opposed the idea of the U.S. taking control of Gaza and displacing the Palestinians who live there. The poll showed that Republicans were divided on the issue, with 55% opposed and 43% supportive.
Sandwiched between Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel and the occupied West Bank, Jordan is already home to more than 2 million Palestinian refugees in its population of 11 million, their status and number long providing a source of anxiety for the country's leadership.
Amman, which depends heavily on Washington for military and economic assistance, is also reeling from Trump's 90-day aid pause. Israel and Egypt have been granted waivers, but the $1.45 billion Jordan gets each year remains frozen pending a Trump administration review of all foreign aid.
King Abdullah "is in a very, very vulnerable position where the U.S. has a lot of leverage," said Ghaith Al-Omari, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank.
But U.S. assistance to Amman "is not charity," Al-Omari said, explaining that Jordan hosts U.S. troops and air assets, is an important intelligence-sharing partner for Washington, and its peace treaty with Israel, signed in 1994, is key to regional stability.
"The king would be hoping that these would be a counter to the leverage that the president has," Al-Omari said.
