SANAA, 7 July 2003 — Yemen and Saudi Arabia said yesterday they are to conduct an overhaul of the mechanisms of the Saudi Yemeni Coordination Council, the highest panel of coordination between the two neighbors.
In a joint communiqué, Yemen and Saudi Arabia affirmed their “keenness to consolidate the security cooperation for the sake of security and stability in the two countries in the field of fighting terrorism” and decided “to intensify and double their efforts to combat it.”
On the regional front, Sanaa and Riyadh “condemned the Israeli practices against the Palestinian people and Israel’s continuing occupation of Arab territories in Syria and Lebanon.”
The Yemeni side “welcomed and supported the initiative by Crown Prince Abdullah to conduct a reform on the Arab condition.”
Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Qader Bajammal said in the closing session of a two-day meeting, co-chaired by Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, that the viewpoints of the two parties “were identical and in line with the resolve of the two peoples.”
However, he added that the two sides agreed on the need for “structural and organizational development for the SYCC.”
Prince Sultan called on the private sector of the two countries to “help further boost economic cooperation,” adding that “investors need a safe social and economic climate that should be offered by both governments.”
Seven agreements on mutual cooperation in the fields of foreign affairs, taxes, culture, agriculture, education, vocational training and developing exports were signed at the final session.
During the second day of the visit, Prince Sultan and Bajammal laid the foundation stone for a compound of vocational and technical institutes in Sanaa worth $7.3 million, to be funded by the Saudi Development Fund. The project is part of a financial aid package of $50 million from SDF to set up 19 technical institutes in several of Yemen’s provinces.
Afterward, they toured the construction site of the Prince Sultan Surgical Center, which, will be adjacent to the Military Hospital in the Yemeni capital. The total cost of the seven-story center is $4.5 million and is funded by Prince Sultan, who donated an additional $1 million to the center yesterday.
Also yesterday, Yemeni Minister of Oil and Minerals Rashid Saleh Ba-Raba and his Saudi counterpart Ali Al-Naimi held official talks focused on developing mechanisms of joint investments in oil and gas projects.
