RIYADH, 29 February 2004 — Gulf foreign ministers yesterday discussed proposals to promote joint action on the eve of an Arab League meeting that will focus on reforming the 22-member body.
The meeting of ministers from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council went into a second session in the evening to examine “plans presented to the Arab League to reform the Arab state of affairs and develop the mechanisms” of joint action, GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman Al-Attiyah said.
Speaking to reporters after the first round of talks, Kuwaiti Information Minister Muhammed Abu Al-Hasan, whose country currently chairs the group, said the body also invited Iraq to join the discussions. “The participation of the Iraqi Governing Council will be the same as before. They have been invited to participate, and any country that has been invited to participate as a member will be allowed to practice their full rights of membership,” he said.
Asked whether the meeting discussed the US administration’s decision to delay the handover of power to Iraqis, the minister said: “We have not discussed this matter. We focused more on matters of unilateral Arab agreement.”
In reply to another question, he denied there had been disagreements.
Abu Al-Hasan was standing in for Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah, who is currently on a private visit to the United States.
Dodging a question from a reporter regarding the GCC’s stance on Washington’s “Greater Middle East Initiative” to democratize the region, the minister said: “We still have not got into that important subject yet. We’re still in the middle of our discussions.”
The US plan was rebuffed in no uncertain terms in a joint Saudi-Egyptian statement issued after a visit by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to Riyadh on Tuesday.
The two sides said the Arabs were proceeding with reform in keeping with their own interests and values, and would “not accept that a particular pattern of reform be imposed on Arab and Islamic countries from outside.”
US officials have since defended themselves against the notion that they were trying to dictate to the Arab world.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt will present a joint reform paper, endorsed by Syria, to the Arab League. The ministers from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were studying the paper, conference sources said. They are to make a joint statement early today.
