Gulf Arabs delay talk of union at Riyadh meeting

RIYADH (Reuters): Gulf Arab countries failed to agree on further integration on Monday after a high-profile summit seen as part of Saudi efforts to counter Iran’s growing influence and Shi’ite Muslim discontent in Bahrain.

Gulf politicians had played up the idea that the Riyadh meeting would establish closer union between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, which sent troops in March last year to help Manama in an initial effort to squash the uprising.

But Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, speaking after the two hour summit, told a news conference that talks on a possible union of six nations had been postponed until the next meeting in Bahrain in December. “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),” he said.

“The issue will take time... The aim is for all countries to join, not just two or three. ... I’m hoping that the six countries will unite in the next meeting.”

The union calls for economic, political and military coordination and a new decision-making body based in Riyadh, replacing the current GCC Secretariat.

But analysts say the plan faces considerable obstacles among Gulf leaders who have jealously guarded their turf.

Neither Oman nor the UAE was represented by their leaders at the summit, where the other “brother rulers”, as the Saudi press describes them, were met by the octogenarian Saudi King Abdullah leaning heavily on a stick.

Speaking about Bahrain, the veteran Saudi minister added: “There was no step to have a special relationship between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, although both countries would welcome closer association. We’re in full cooperation with all Gulf states to come up with the union.”

Majority Shi’ites have been leading an uprising in Bahrain for democratic reforms for over a year, raising Saudi fears of an impact upon Shi’ites in its oil-producing Eastern Province.

The Saudi minister said that Gulf leaders had agreed to sign a deal 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.

The GCC was formed in 1981 by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to counter Iraqi and Iranian influence at the time.