Jordan “cannot afford to waste time” in implementing reforms that would bolster the middle class, especially the diversification of energy resources, His Majesty King Abdullah said on Wednesday.

“Jordanians are suffering from the rise in prices, and feel anxious,” King Abdullah said, adding that the middle class especially has been adversely affected by the combination of rising energy international energy prices and the country's dependence on imported oil and gas.

In an interview with Marc Epstein from the French L'Express Magazine, which was published today in Paris, the King said Jordan seeks to utilise its uranium resources to establish a nuclear energy sector. Jordan possesses three percent of the world's known uranium resources. He added that France would be a helpful partner in this endeavour and that it is expected that Jordan, with the assistance of French company AREVA, will have its first nuclear reactor within seven years.

King Abdullah's interview with L'Express took place during a working visit to France that also included meetings with French President Nicholas Sarkozy and a speech at the annual conference of the Movement of French Enterprises (MEDEF), where the King praised President Sarkozy's Union for the Mediterranean initiative.

During the interview, King Abdullah elaborated further, saying that Jordan's support for the initiative emanates from the fact that Europe has always been close to the Middle East. France in particular, he added, is Jordan's major investment partner.

“The Union for the Mediterranean presents an actual means for us to get closer”, he said.

King Abdullah also discussed the standstill in the Middle East peace process, saying that Israel and the Western countries, specifically the United States, should give more support to the Palestinian Authority to solve the Middle East conflict.

“Primarily, by paying more attention to economic aid, but also by removing the check points and stopping the building of settlements,” he said.

Although Jordanian and Arab support for the peace process remains in tact, he said he feared that the peace process is “in jeopardy”.

He expressed his concern about Israel's commitment to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, warning that Israel had not demonstrated the necessary long-term vision of its future in the region.

King Abdullah said that continued Israeli settlement building on occupied Palestinian land signaled Israel's lack of interest in a two-state solution.

“Every time they build a settlement it means that what they say on one hand and what they do on the other are two different things,” he said.

King Abdullah pointed out that the only acceptable solution to Arabs and Muslims is the creation of a Palestinian state and an agreement on final status issues; at the forefront, Jerusalem and the refugees. He reiterated that the Jordan option is not open to discussion and that the future of Jordanian-Palestinian relations could not be discussed until after the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In the interview, the King referred to the important role of the United States in urging both sides to reach a settlement.

In response to a question about Iran's nuclear programme, King Abdullah said Jordan continues to hope that armed intervention would be averted.

“Such an operation will provoke a tit-for-tat response, and who knows where such a sequence will take us,” he said. “All countries in the region will pay the price.”

In response to a question about a possible Russian resurgence, the King said that during the Cold War years, the confrontation between Russia and the West took place through proxies.

“Should there be a rise of tension between Russia and the West, I'm afraid that the countries of the Middle East will be involved once again,” he said.