ARAB AFFAIRS - June 7 - GCC Backs Saudi War On Terror.

A GCC FMs' meeting at the Red Sea port city of Jeddah supports the Saudi government's war against terrorism by radical Wahhabi militants. Kuwaiti FM Shaikh Mohammed Al Salem Al Sabah (with Kuwait having the current chair of the six-state GCC) backs security measures taken by the Saudi government and says: "The terrorist acts in brotherly Saudi Arabia continue to represent a real danger to the whole world and we must all exert every effort and co-operate with the international community to combat this dangerous disease which has no nation or religion. We must deploy all efforts and co-operate with the international community to fight this epidemic". The meeting discussed Iran's occupation of UAE islands Greater and Lesser Tunbs  and Abu Mussa. The FMs expressed the hope that the latest contacts between the Iran and the UAE would lead to peaceful settlement of the problem. They voiced support for Baghdad's new interim government and hope it would build an independent and united Iraq. (On May 4 the GCC interior ministers signed a pact calling for concerted efforts to confront terror, which GCC Sec-Gen Attiyah described as the most important accord since the organisation was formed in 1981. At a one-day consultative summit in Jeddah on May 16, the GCC leaders vowed to close ranks to defeat terrorism - see Recorder 23).