Thaindian News

Cairo, Dec 3 (IANS) Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are set to meet next week in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi, where the bloc was founded about 30 years ago.

The leaders are expected to discuss a wide range of issues concerning regional security and development at the upcoming 31st GCC summit, scheduled to be held Dec 6-7, Xinhua reported Friday.

At the summit, the six GCC states - Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE - are expected to reiterate the regional security as a top policy priority, which has been a major concern to them since the establishment of the GCC in May 1981.

The agenda of the GCC foreign ministers meeting, held in Abu Dhabi Nov 12, indicated that some hot issues are likely to be touched upon at the summit.

The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the dispute between Iran and UAE over three islands in the Gulf, developments in Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia, are expected to dominate the summit.

The UAE’s dispute with Iran over three Gulf islands located near shipping lanes has rumbled on for three decades, with little sign of turning into armed conflicts, but both sides remain sensitive on the issue.

The islands, Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, are controlled by Iran but claimed by the UAE with broad Arab backing. UAE’s ties with Iran have been strained since Iran set up maritime offices on one of the islands in 2008.

Iran’s nuclear file, a frequent item on the agenda of GCC summit, will also be presented before the leaders.

The GCC summit will review the latest developments in the Palestinian territories and the progress of the stalled peace process in the Middle East, after the Palestinians quit the US- brokered Israeli-Palestinian direct talks.

Regional development and intra-cooperation are also expected to take centre stage.

One of the topics on the GCC agenda is the Common Gulf Market, an agreement which was signed in 2008 that ensures all Gulf citizens are treated as equals economically in all GCC states, and would allow Gulf citizens to seek work or medical treatment, for instance, in any of the GCC countries.

The last but definitely not the least, oil price will surely be discussed at the summit. The GCC members together hold around 40 percent of the world’s oil reserves and pump around 16 million barrels of crude oil per day.