By Maher Abbas
Saudi Gazette
RIYADH — Leaders agreed Monday to allow more time for further discussions over a proposal to turn the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council into a union, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said after a GCC leaders’ summit here.
“Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have approved the call for a commission to continue studying in order to present final results (to a coming summit),” Prince Saud told a joint press conference with GCC Secretary General Dr. Abdullatif Al-Zayani.
“The issue will take time... The aim is for all countries to join, not just two or three.”
“We’re in full cooperation with all Gulf states to come up with the union.”
“I’m hoping that the six countries will unite in the next meeting,” Prince Saud said.
The Saudi minister also said no steps would be taken on a closer relationship between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
“There was no step to have a special relationship between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, although both countries would welcome closer association,” he said.
Prince Saud said that Iran should keep out of the Kingdom’s relations with Bahrain, even if the two states decide to form a union.
“Iran has nothing to do with what happens between the two countries, even if it develops into a unity,” he told reporters.
He said that Gulf leaders had agreed to sign an agreement struck by interior ministers on closer security cooperation and that ministers would work “day and night” in economic, political, security and military committees set up since a summit last December to prepare the ground for union.
King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, called on the GCC to move “to the stage of unity in a single entity” at a summit last year. That meeting set up a committee to study the proposal.
The union calls for economic, political and military coordination and a new decision-making body based in Riyadh, replacing the current GCC Secretariat.
The Saudi foreign minister warned that confidence in international envoy Kofi Annan’s peace efforts in Syria was fading fast because of the relentless bloodshed in Syria.
“Confidence in the efforts of the international envoy is falling rapidly because fighting and bloodshed continue,” Prince Saud said.
Fighting in Syria killed at least 32 people Monday, activists said.
The latest bloodshed centered in Rastan, where opposition sources said rebels killed 23 members of Assad’s security forces in fighting while heavy government shelling of the town killed nine people — further unravelling an April 12 ceasefire deal that is being overseen by international monitors. — With agencies
