{"id":12273,"date":"2012-09-04T11:18:06","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T18:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12273"},"modified":"2012-09-04T11:18:06","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T18:18:06","slug":"bahrain-pins-high-hopes-on-gcc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12273","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain pins high hopes on GCC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain pins high hopes on GCC summit at home<\/strong>
\nBy Habib Toumi – 4 September – 2012 – Gulf News<\/p>\n

Manama: Bahrain is getting ready to host the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in December, the country\u2019s foreign minister has said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working around the clock to be ready for the summit in Manama,\u201d Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa said. \u201cThe leaders\u2019 meeting will build on the achievements accomplished at each of the past summits. The Manama summit will continue the trend of achievements. When you look at the larger picture, you see that the GCC has never regressed and that it has always moved forward. Today\u2019s GCC is different from what it was 10 or 20 years ago,\u201d he said, quoted by local Arabic daily Al Ayam on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

However, a proposed union between the GCC countries will not likely be on the main agenda of the leaders\u2019 summit, Shaikh Khalid said although he did recall that the GCC leaders at their summit in Riyadh in May had \u201cagreed that a special summit would be held to discuss the latest developments on the union\u201d. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

In December, Saudi Arabia\u2019s King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz sought to rally fellow GCC states, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE saying it was time for the alliance to move from the phase of cooperation to a Gulf union within a single entity.<\/p>\n

The six member states of the Council founded in 1981 in Abu Dhabi have reportedly agreed on the move, but hold different views on the pace at which such a transition should come about.<\/p>\n

An ad-hoc commission, made up of 12 members, two from each member country, was set up to look into ways to implement the proposal and its report was submitted to the Council.<\/p>\n

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were openly enthusiastic about it, while other members said that more time was needed to achieve the transition. Enthusiasm for the move was so high in Manama and Riyadh that it gave rise to the thinking that the two countries should jointly work to speed up the initiative, possibly with Doha being part of it, with the other capitals joining in at a later stage.<\/p>\n

However, the GCC leaders at their annual advisory summit in Riyadh in May said that more time was needed and that the initiative would be taken up by the council of foreign ministers.<\/p>\n

In remarks made at the opening of the Korean embassy in Manama, Shaikh Khalid also reiterated Bahrain\u2019s commitment to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been committed to the Movement since 1971 \u2014 Bahrain\u2019s year of independence \u2014 and we have taken part in each of its summits regardless of where it is held,\u201d he said. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahrain pins high hopes on GCC summit at home By Habib Toumi – 4 September – 2012 – Gulf News Manama: Bahrain is getting ready to host the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in December, the country\u2019s foreign minister has said. \u201cWe are working around the clock to be ready for the summit in Manama,\u201d more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2015],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12273"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12275,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12273\/revisions\/12275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}