Kuwait foreign minister hails “amity” after pan-Gulf Arab talks

Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Yahya on Monday said that talks joining him and his counterparts from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were marked by a sense of “amity,” hailing the unity of the six-member bloc in the face of existential challenges.

Gulf Arab foreign ministers discussed a range of pressing matters running the gamut from politics and security to the economy and humanitarian work, the Kuwaiti top diplomat told a joint press conference alongside GCC Secretary General Jassem Al-Budaiwi after the talks.

On maritime border negotiations between Kuwait and Iraq, the Gulf Arab foreign ministers urged Baghdad to respect Kuwait’s “sovereignty and territorial unity,” in line with relevant United Nations laws and conventions, while Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have “exclusive rights” to the offshore Durra oil field in a neutral zone shared between the Gulf Arab neighbors, he underlined.

The Kuwaiti foreign minister went on to say that it was imperative for the GCC to ratchet up its ties with the international community, in the wake of talks the Riyadh-based bloc has held with world leaders, including US president Donald Trump and the Southeast Asian group ASEAN, all of which yielded “fruitful” results, he added.

Thanking Kuwait for hosting the latest round of GCC foreign ministerial-level talks, the bloc’s chief said that the gathering addressed a number of significant developments in the wider Arab region, chief among them the GCC’s “unyielding” support for Palestinian rights to statehood, based on 1967 border lines with East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state.

He concurred with the Kuwaiti foreign minister over the importance of reaching out to the international community, as seen in a spate of recent summits the bloc has had with the US and the European Union, while talks with Asia Pacific nations is slated for Uzbekistan soon, he added.

The purpose for such gatherings is to bolster the cooperation between Gulf Arab states, ultimately making sure that they share common views on regional and international developments, citing a number of economic and financial policies the bloc plans to introduce in a bid to push forward integration efforts, said the official. – KUNA