09/03/2008 11:47 PM | By Mariam Al Hakeem, Correspondent
Riyadh: The foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) held a meeting in Jeddah last night with Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan on the sidelines of their 108th Ministerial Council session.
During the meeting the ministers declared Turkey a strategic partner of the GCC and signed a memorandum of understanding.
Turkey has become the first country outside the Gulf to be given the status of strategic partner of the GCC.
The memorandum of understanding was signed by the Turkish foreign minister and Qatari Prime Minister Shaikh Hamad Bin Jasem Bin Jabr Al Thani, who is current chairman of the GCC Ministerial Council, and GCC Secretary General Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah.
In a press conference on Tuesday, the Qatari premier said: "The signing of the memo is a step on the way to strategic relations and it is vital for both the GCC countries and Turkey."
He said the Turkish GCC accord has nothing to do with the balance of power in the region and expressed the hope that they would be able to sign a similar memo of understanding with Iran.
Annual meetings
"The cooperation with Turkey is important and we hope to come to the signing of such a memorandum with Iran," he said.
Babacan called for political, economic, military and security cooperation with the GCC countries and proposed the holding of an annual meeting with the foreign ministers of the two sides.
"Turkey believes that institutionalising our relations with the council will serve our common interests and open new horizons for our cooperation," he said.
He also underlined the importance Turkey attached to the stability and security of the Gulf countries.
"Today, there is a belt of crises in the Middle East, and it is unfortunately in an area between Turkey in the north and the Gulf in the south," he said.
The minister said that the location of Turkey and the Gulf countries could help provide a solution to the crises and contribute to regional stability.
Babacan said he wished to sign a free trade agreement with the council as soon as possible, and expressed his expectation from the member states to make greater investments in Turkey.
The GCC ministers discussed a number of other issues, including the Iranian occupation of three UAE islands, the Palestinian cause and the means of supporting the GCC march in all areas as well as adopting nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, in addition to strategic dialogue between the GCC countries and China.
The ministers condemned Iran's establishment of two administrative offices on Abu Mousa island, which is part of the UAE, and demanded that Iran remove the illegal installations and respect UAE sovereignty on its lands.
09/03/2008 11:47 PM | By Joseph A. Kechichian, Special to Gulf News
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hassan Qashqavi, confirmed that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was likely to attend the upcoming Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Muscat, even if the host country insisted that participation was limited to leaders from the six member-states.
The overconfident Qashqavi clarified that Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifah Al Thani, the ruler of Qatar who visited Tehran last week, hoped "to convey the Arabian Gulf countries' request to expand cooperation with the Islamic Republic and holding further negotiations with Iran on ways to establish peace and security in the region."
What kind of a guest would Ahmadinejad make if an invitation brought him to Oman after all?
Because Ahmadinejad attended the 28th Doha Summit in December 2007, where the closed session meeting with senior GCC leaders was anything but brotherly, many were wary of the precedent setting arrangement. According to the London-based daily Asharq Al Awsat, Muscat did not intend to invite Ahmadinejad, with an Omani official declaring: "We have no decision to invite the leaders of non-GCC countries for participation of this council's session."
It may be argued that the GCC States and Iran would benefit from additional dialogue to reinforce existing ties as well as promote cooperation on both sides of the Gulf. Yet, in exchange for sorely needed additional collaboration, one would expect that Tehran would bend backwards to settle serious but manageable contentions.
Given its egregious record of occupation - Abu Mousa and the Lesser and Greater Tunb Islands in the UAE - or its periodic threats to close the strategic Straits of Hormuz, has it dawned on Iran to come to terms with these concerns for the sake of long-term stability?
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was startled last week after GCC Secretary-General Abdul-Rahman Al Atiyyah compared the Iranian occupation of the islands - and there are no other words to describe this fact - to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
Mottaki described the affable Secretary-General's evaluation as being "inappropriate", even if the shrewd foreign minister quickly added that his government was studying the invitation to its president. In fact, reliable Qatari sources confirmed that Shaikh Hamad's latest meetings with his Iranian counterpart were as difficult as previous ones, although customary public assertions of "partnership" and "consultations" abounded.
Impossible
Whether Shaikh Hamad extended his latest invitation out of frustration was impossible to know, even if a high-ranking Omani official validated the notion that most Gulf leaders did not know anything about inviting the Iranian. Indeed, Kuwaiti officials authenticated this contention by declaring: "Kuwait was not consulted or expressed an opinion on this question.
It did not receive any request or desire to possibly invite the Iranian president to the upcoming GCC summit." Abu Dhabi, Manama and Riyadh were equally in the dark and did not wish to repeat the 2007 embarrassment, when strong words were exchanged among participants.
Still, a genuine invitation to the Iranian president should be considered by Oman on behalf of GCC leaders, if and only if pre-summit negotiations can secure a felicitous outcome on at least one existing contention. In other words, and given that senior GCC officials iron out most of their agenda before an actual summit, Muscat may well wish to tie an Ahmadinejad participation with a withdrawal agreement from Abu Mousa and the Tunbs. This is the stuff of international relations and a serious quid pro quo must be established to advance Iranian-GCC ties beyond the proverbial but shallow "brotherly" support.
An Ahmadinejad presence at a summit that is well prepared will benefit Iran just as much as GCC countries. Since the day will surely come when this occupation will end, why not anticipate its end, and negotiate a specific accord now? Why not entice Tehran to deliver on its lofty prose? Why not invite Mottaki to distinguish Iran from Israel by actually behaving differently from the Jewish state?
Short of such a commitment, GCC countries will not accept a second Iranian intrusion within their ranks. Indeed, the time has come for Ahmadinejad to put his policies where his mouth is, and belie those who dismiss him as a second-rate charlatan. Clearly, the Iranian is a man of action and can quickly reach a decision, even if technicalities might take a little longer to sort out. No one should be pre-occupied that there is no time to iron out a deal because the summit is imminent.
One can make the argument that while occupation is a complicated matter, which will require a lot of negotiations, enough time has elapsed that no longer require further discussions. The uncertainty or perhaps the hesitancy hovers around a mere choice.
Either Iran acknowledges that it is an occupying power, and that it wishes to cleanse itself of this heavy burden, or it believes that the occupied Islands are Iranian property. In the latter case, no brotherly invitations would make an iota of difference, and Mottaki would no longer be justified to voice his consternation at an official GCC condemnation.
Ahmadinejad must distance himself from the likes of Kazem Jalali, the rapporteur of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, who criticised Atiyyah and labelled the Secretary-General's declaration as being "inflammatory discourse" and "influenced by the great powers and their satanic policies". Ahmadinejad will need to chastise such underlings and mean what he says about the Arab Gulf States, lest he be accused of hypocrisy, which is clearly not his mantle.
When one is invited to someone else's home, etiquette requires that you carry appropriate gifts for the occasion. Iran needs to rise to the occasion of the upcoming GCC summit by finally accepting that its occupation of the UAE islands will end. Without any denials or preconditions for endless negotiations that are unbecoming of great leaders. That's the stuff of statesmen who have a vision and guests who wish to walk on a red carpet.
Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is a commentator and author of several books on Gulf affairs.
10/02/2008 12:07 AM | By Joseph A. Kechichian, Special to Gulf News
Now that US Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates recognised that the 2003 Iraq invasion "shock-and-awe" strategy was an error, and that the Pentagon's narrow focus on conventional combat operations proved costly, how will the next president of the United States perceive the Gulf region?
Can John McCain justify his long-term involvement in Iraq while Barack Obama contemplates an orderly withdrawal? Will either deny Iran a nuclear capability, stabilise the entire area, or help precipitate a far more dangerous environment?
In their first presidential debate on September 26, Obama and McCain devoted specific attention to Iraq as well as Iran, and what both said about future American relations in the region deserves meticulous attention.
The two candidates challenged each other on Iraq but, as expected, confirmed long-held positions. Perhaps to show resolve, Obama asserted that Washington "should never hesitate to use military force, and I will not," he emphasised, "as president, in order to keep the American people safe, never hesitate to use military force".
His bravura targeted the hapless Afghans and Pakistanis, and while McCain remained focused on Iraq, both vociferously threatened Iran.
With the latest Gates interjection that the counterinsurgency mission in Iraq "came at a frightful human, financial and political cost," Obama's focus on misjudgments that preceded the 2003 invasion was poignant. "You said it was going to be quick and easy," Obama lambasted McCain.
"You said you knew where the weapons of mass destruction were," he pounced, mockingly concluding: "You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong." Still, McCain insisted that the United States was "winning in Iraq, and we will come home with victory and with honour."
Alas for Iraq and the Gulf region, the debate took on very belligerent tones as the two senators insisted that regional developments, including the rapidly expanding nuclear weapons programme in Iran, would necessitate uncompromising American responses.
Although the two disagreed on how best to interact with Tehran, their proposals confirmed that neither was prepared to bargain. Both acquiesced to the notion that the US could not tolerate a nuclear Iran even if they did not reveal how they might prevent such an outcome.
The Gulf region is in for some nasty surprises in the months ahead for a variety of reasons. McCain emphasised and kept pointing out that Washington could not, indeed must not, lose in Iraq even if he seldom explained what winning actually meant. Someone should remind him that President George W. Bush declared "mission accomplished" after he landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier near San Diego on May 2, 2003.
Others spoke of a "cakewalk" before catastrophe hit them in the face, or were confronted with "stuff happens" after man-made tragedies hit them on the head. We now have a contrite Gates explaining that raw might "envisioned a computerised [perhaps even an] idealised version of warfare" to have been unrealistic.
Gates was brutally honest when he warned officers to "be sceptical of systems analysis, computer models, game theories," adding that they should "look askance" at notions of future conflict that imply "adversaries can be cowed, shocked or awed into submission, instead of being tracked down, hilltop by hilltop, house by house."
One wished that Gates went a step further if for no other reason than to warn McCain and Obama that they should think twice about sending men and women into harm's way. He should have acknowledged that over 4,177 (as of September 30) American deaths in Iraq created a lot of widows and orphans.
He should have apologised to the loved ones of the million or so Iraqis killed because of an illegal war. Moreover, and rather than indirectly raising the blatant illegality of this war - invading on the basis of a pack of lies concocted by third-rate neo-conservative ideologues who were and are ready to sacrifice every man, woman and child to satisfy mistaken beliefs or sheer greed - Gates could have learned a lesson from Robert McNamara.
It may be useful to remember what the architect of the Vietnam War wrote in his 1995 memoirs. Appropriately titled In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, the repentant former secretary of defence carved for posterity: "Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why," and in 2004, he insisted that the West in general and the US in particular, were making the same mistakes all over again in Iraq.
Conundrum
McCain and Obama face a conundrum: one of them will become president shortly and must come to terms with the kind of delusions and false assumptions that the world has not seen since Vietnam. Both must reassess American influence, to avoid lies (WMDs), immorality (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo), political quagmires (ethnic cleansing), and economic ruin.
The next president will have to rediscover international law, respect the Geneva Conventions, desist from illegal and ineffective regime changes in sovereign nations, and end a slew of policy initiatives that harm Americans in the first place and the rest of the world in the second.
In a moment of utter candour, almost remorsefully, McCain told us last Friday: "And we've got to - to make sure that we have people who are trained interrogators so that we don't ever torture a prisoner ever again," even if in February 2008, he voted to preserve water-boarding.
The contradiction was eminent, and while Obama gave McCain "great credit on the torture issue," the next president was truly confronted with the option of restoring lost American values. Beyond Iraq, Iran, and oil, it was important for both men and their numerous advisors to see the Gulf region not as a confrontation zone but as ordinary and peaceful. So that the region could prosper, away from the vagaries of major powers, and the threat of perpetual wars.
Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is a commentator and author of several books on Gulf affairs.
10/03/2008
By Jihad Fakhreddine, Special to Gulf News
Out of a total of 14 million square miles, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) occupies 14.3 per cent of the Arab world. In 2007, the GCC's population, including expatriates, comprised 13 per cent of the Arab world's approximate population of 320 millions.
This seeming balance in area and population turns into an imbalance in terms of distribution of economic resources at least when measured in GDP. In 2007, the GCC's GDP was about 43 per cent of a total $2,500 billion.
In 2007, the GCC population stood at about 40 millions; 25 millions of them were GCC nationals (63 per cent). Unconfirmed estimates put the Arab expatriates share at one-third of the 15 million or so expatriates in the region. Some estimates indicate that by 2025, expatriates would constitute about two-thirds of the GCC population
The aggravation of population imbalance has serious implications on both, the fate of the GCC nationals as people, their economic future, as well the region's strategic security.
The current population imbalance has become part of the regional debate. The public session convened by the UAE's National Federal Council (NFC) mid-September, on UAE's national identity illustrates that there is a sense of identity crisis. Amongst the attendees was UAE's most renowned intellectual, Dr Abdulkhaleq Abdullah who was most articulate in identifying some of the root causes for this crisis.
"National identity equals the federal identity and not the local. The sense of belonging is to the homeland and not to individual emirates that make up the federation... The question is not who I am?" he said. "Or, who are we?
The question is about our relationship with the nation we belong to. When I talk about identity, I mean national identity. And when we put these two words together the individual's relationship with the nation and homeland is invoked. The national identity has come under siege. It is going through a very difficult period."
I would add one additional factor to Abulkhaleq's perceptions; it is the resistance to the notion of population assimilation of expatriates. I am not referring here to an outright issuing of GCC passports to expatriates. Irrespective of how eventually some degree of assimilation may be implemented, there is an urgent need to discuss the long term benefits of assimilation and which segments of the expatriate population to assimilate and how.
Taboo
The term assimilation has so far been regarded as a political and cultural taboo. But since nations must always plan for long terms, 50 and 100 years from now, history tells us that assimilation are facts of life. What does Arab history in specific teach us about population assimilation? Indeed a lot!
Starting from over 5,000 years ago, migrants from the Arabian Peninsula, and specifically from Yemen started settling in the Fertile Crescent and Egypt. After the Islamic conquests that started over 1,600 years ago, they managed to give the vast lands that stretches as far the Atlantic, their name: Arab. The ancient migration waves were propelled by economic desperation. Later, Arab Islamic conquests were propelled by political and religious motivations.
It was an illustration of the positive impact Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula had on those two neighbouring regions. Adopting the name of the migrants was an illustration of how influential their impact was. The assimilation process took many generations as would be expected, but it also illustrates the willingness of the indigenous population to accept the migrants as part of them to the extent of adopting their name - Arabs.
During the oil boom, the change of economic fortunes of the Arab Peninsula witnessed a reverse of the push and pull of migration between the GCC and the rest of the countries in the Arab world. The resultant economic potential could only be sustained with the help of migrants from both the Arab and non-Arab world.
Now the question is, if a country cannot meet its population requirements on its own, what does it do if it's under threat for its survival? It seeks some sort of fortification from others who have the most likely (and possibly most willing) to be part of this intricate and lengthy process. For the GCC, the most likely prospects are Arab expatriates, certainly not an across the-board sort of assimilation. It's having to go back to the Arab history and learn from the assimilation process that took place between Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula and the rest of the present day Arab world.
Indeed all circumstances are entirely different now, but certain parallels are there. The parallels are in the need for fast-forwarding already existing conditions that could be conducive for such possible assimilation.
There is no doubt that common denominators such as Islam, Arabism and Arabic language alone are not sufficient, although they are necessary. It has more to do with creating a sense of common interests for the survival of the respective societies and states. It also has to do with creating a stake in preserving as well as willingness in protecting its existence for the common interest.
Loyalty and commitment must be a reciprocal process between the GCC states and the prospective population to be assimilated. Just as the GCC nationals are under siege, so are many of the expatriates - Arabs and non-Arabs alike where the uncertainty about their future is itself in a state of siege.
The longer they get established in the host country, especially the second and third generations, the lesser are the prospects of being assimilated in their homelands as well. The state of siege stems from not having strong sense of belonging to any state, be it first home or the second home.
The case for soft assimilation of some selected segments of Arab expatriates should not be looked at as a non-Arab prejudice. It has more to do with the identification of the potential population segments that could assimilate fastest and could possibly pose least cultural threat to the GCC indigenous populations.
Jihad N. Fakhreddine is an expert on public opinion polling.
