AMMAN, Jordan — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that Israel and Jordan have agreed on steps aimed at reducing tensions at a holy site in Jerusalem that have fanned Israeli-Palestinian violence.
"All the violence and the incitement to violence must stop. Leaders must lead," Kerry told reporters in the Jordanian capital after meeting with King Abdullah II and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
The top U.S. diplomat said the steps include round-the-clock video monitoring and Israel's reaffirming of Jordan's special and historic role as custodian of the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif.
The king suggested the monitoring, according to Kerry, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted.
Israel has pledged to maintain the rules of worship at the site, and Israeli and Jordanian authorities will meet about bolstering security, Kerry said.
Netanyahu's office had no immediate comment. The U.S. and Jordan expected him to talk about the situation late Saturday night.
Kerry, who met with Netanyahu in Berlin on Thursday, said the leaders "expressed their strong commitment to ending the violence and restoring the calm as soon as possible."
"I hope that based on these conversations we can finally put to rest some of the false assumptions, perceptions" about the holy site, Kerry said. "Those perceptions are stoking the tensions and fueling the violence and it is important for us to end the provocative rhetoric and start to change the public narrative that comes out of those false perceptions."
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