Amman – Ma'an – Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mash'al is not scheduled to hold any official meetings during his visit to Jordan on Saturday, according to Mousa Abu Marzouq, his deputy.

Mash'al's father, 91-year-old Abed Ar-Raheem Mash'al, died on Friday in Jordan and was expected to be buried there.

Abu Marzouq told the Jordanian daily newspaper "Al-Ghad" that Mash'al would arrive in Amman for his father's funeral, and would stay two days for condolences. There will be no meetings with Jordanian officials as the visit is purely humanitarian, he said.

Mash'al had been banned from the kingdom for over ten years.

Jordan and Hamas have had poor relations since five of the Islamic movement's members, including Khaled Mash'al, were expelled to Qatar in 1999. In 2006, Jordan charged others with smuggling weapons from Syria.

Meanwhile on Friday, de facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called Mash'al to extend his condolences, while other Hamas officials expressed sympathy for the exiled leader. The Popular Resistance Movement and its secretary-general, Zakareiyah Dughmush, extended condolences to Mash'al, as well.

Abed Ar-Raheem Mash'al was born in the West Bank town of Silwad, near Ramallah. He was active in the resistance against the British Mandate and took part in the 1936 rebellion.

The senior Mash'al moved to Kuwait in the 1960s and was joined by his family in 1967 following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

At the outbreak of the Gulf War, he moved to Jordan, where he lived until his death on Friday.