GCC-US Strategic Cooperation Forum takes shape in New York

I write this week from New York, as the GCC-US Strategic Cooperation Forum held its third session in New York last Thursday (Sept. 26). The foreign ministers from the GCC countries and the United States, as well as the GCC secretary general and the US secretary of defense attended the meeting. The forum was launched in March 2012 at the GCC headquarters in Riyadh. Considering its brief history, it has easily become the most important grouping for US foreign and security policy in the region.
The agenda of the New York meeting, held at the historic Waldorf Astoria, was quite comprehensive, as is quite clear by the lengthy joint communiqué issued at the conclusion of the meeting. It reviewed progress made in all areas under the forum’s mandate (political, military, security, economic, … etc.) and discussed regional issues, such as Syria, Iran, Yemen, Egypt and Palestine.
For obvious reasons, Syria was a focus of the meeting, held hours before voting at the UN Security Council on the resolution to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons. Strongly condemning the Aug. 21 massacre in Syria, the ministers noted that the atrocities inflicted by the Syrian regime go far beyond the heinous crime of using chemical weapons and called for those responsible in the Syrian regime for all the crimes committed against the Syrian people to be held accountable before an international tribunal.
The GCC and US officials reaffirmed their shared position that Bashar Asad and his top aides who are responsible for the massacres have no place in a transitional body or thereafter. They also reiterated their support for the Syrian Opposition Coalition and recommitted to providing any and all assistance to the Syrian opposition through the coalition and its associated body, the Assistance Coordination Unit and the Supreme Military Council.
On Iran, both the US and the GCC do not accept the reduction of the Iran issue to its nuclear program, important at it is. Reacting to the charm offensive launched by the new Iranian president in New York, the ministers coolly said that they had “followed with interest statements by President of Iran Hassan Rouhani, regarding Iran’s interest in resolving its differences with neighbors and emphasized the need for Iran to translate that into concrete and practical steps.”
Of course the main objective of the forum rotates around the newly founded partnership between the United States and the GCC as an organization. For that purpose, the ministers reviewed the progress made since the forum last met in September 2012. They then renewed their desire to “take concerted and collective action under the framework of the GCC-US Strategic Cooperation Forum to promote peace, security, stability, and prosperity throughout the region.” Among other things, they decided to do the following:
One: Continue to work toward enhanced US-GCC coordination on Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), including the eventual development of a Gulf-wide coordinated missile defense architecture built around interoperable US and GCC forces that would serve as an integrated system to defend the territory and assets of the GCC states against the threat of ballistic missiles.
Two: Continue to improve the unity of the GCC in defense planning and develop common approaches to military procurement of weapons systems and technology.
Three: Expand the capacity of the GCC Maritime Operations Center (MOC) in Bahrain to share information on the maritime domain in the Gulf region.
Four: In light of the success of the second US-GCC Counter-Proliferation Workshop held in April 2013 in Riyadh, encourage further progress in this area.
Five: Give full support to the high-level Joint Committee for Security Cooperation, charged with issues of counter-terrorism and border control with special focus on issues such as counter money laundering and terrorism financing, combating piracy and arms smuggling, traveler screening, Critical Energy Infrastructure Protection, as well as countering violent and extremist ideologies. The ministers welcomed the upcoming meeting of the Committee on Oct. 8-9, 2013.
Six: Augment the economic partnership between the GCC and the US by achieving the goals outlined during the inaugural GCC-US Trade and Investment Forum under the umbrella of the Framework Agreement for Trade, economic, investment and technical cooperation between the two sides, which took place on June 3-5, 2013 at the GCC Secretariat in Riyadh.
Seven: Work toward convening high-level working groups meant to advance cooperation in the areas of public health, environmental and humanitarian/disaster relief, natural resource management, as well as science and technology.
At the beginning of the forum in 2012, some observers thought that its Achilles’ heel would be the big gap between the GCC and US positions on the Palestine question. It is still a challenge, but significant progress was made in New York last week. They still do not see eye-to-eye on a number of difficult issues but there is a growing consensus on the fundamentals. The joint communiqué, for example, says that the recently resumed peace negotiations should aim “at bringing an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and working towards a peaceful settlement based on a two-state solution according to the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.”
They also reiterated their position that the peace they seek should be “comprehensive, just and long-lasting resolution” that solves all “permanent status issues,” and that the Palestinian state should be viable, i.e., economically self-sustaining, and geographically contiguous. The ministers also affirmed their willingness to provide economic support for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Economic Initiative. More progress need to be made to reach consensus on other aspects of the Palestine question but this is certainly progress, compared to the last two sessions of the GCC-US Strategic Cooperation Forum, when the Palestine question was only briefly mentioned.
The progress made by the forum in just two years is impressive in most areas, but can it sustain this momentum and expand it to include the remaining areas of its mandate? That depends on how much energy and resources the two sides can dedicate to the forum in coming months.

Email: aluwaisheg@gmail.com