JEDDAH: The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers are holding an exceptional meeting in Riyadh Sunday to look at the “rapid developments” occurring in the Arab arena. The Secretariat General of the GCC issued a statement Saturday saying that the meeting to be chaired by Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Minister of Foreign Affairs, will look at the “rapid developments being witnessed in the Arab world and the region generally,” as well as “other regional and international developments”. Gulf sources told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that the foreign ministers would look at the situations in Bahrain and Iranian interference in the Gulf. “The Kuwaiti delegation will also address ministers on developments related to the Iranian spy network which Kuwait has recently finished investigating and which resulted in death sentences to two Iranians and one Kuwaiti,” they said. They added that the Bahraini minister of foreign affairs would brief the meeting on developments in his country, particularly the mediation being conducted by Bahraini Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Bin Issa Al-Khalifa with the Bahraini opposition. “Other Arab countries still experiencing disturbances and a wave of protests, such as Yemen, Syria and Libya, will also be discussed in the meeting,” the sources said. The new Secretary General of the GCC, Abdul Latif Al-Zayyani, will be present at the meeting, having assumed the position after Abdul Rahman Al-Attiya reached the end of his term of service. On Friday, the Kingdom condemned a statement issued by Iranian authorities calling on Saudi Arabia to pull its forces out of Bahrain and describing the Saudi policy in the Gulf as “playing with fire”. An official source said, “It condemned in strong terms the irresponsible statement issued in the name of the Committee for National Security and Foreign Policy of the Council of Iranian Islamic Shoura which described the Saudi policy in the Gulf region as playing with fire and demanded the Kingdom to withdraw its forces from Bahrain,” SPA reported. “The statement ignores the Iranian interference in the internal matters of the countries in the region violating the sovereignty and independence of those countries. It also attempts to stoke sedition and incite trouble with hostile policies contravening international laws and norms and principles of good neighborliness. The latest instance of Iran's brazen interference was in Kuwait where it used a network, linked to the Iranian mission, to plot against that country,” the source said. — Okaz/ Saudi Gazette /Saudi Press Agency __
