Presided over by Prince Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz, Deputy Minister of Defense and Aviation and Inspector General, ministers of defense of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries held the sixth meeting of the joint defense council here today. The meeting was opened with a speech by Prince Abdulrahman who said the meeting will discuss issues concerning the development of the defense side of the GCC countries in view of the strategic neighborhood, change of sources of threat, the emergence of the danger of terrorism and the rise of influential regional powers. Prince Abdulrahman added, "We should work hard to develop our armed forces to be able to ensure regional stability and security of energy sources in view of the threats we face. We should also effectively continue work which we began previously to reach defense, security and social arrangements to meet our defensive requirements and develop these requirements for our countries to have the role of the balancing power. "The region in which Interests converge and ambitions differ requires agreement and balance in interests from our countries to confront ambitions. We have also to draw a strategic plan based on coordination among the GCC countries in the field of armament and training. It is more important to begin the step of military manufacturing and develop the investment aspect in this field among our countries. There are individual efforts in some of our countries which need collective support. Also, there are some experiments in the private sector which proved successful and need our endorsement because any success in any of our countries is in no doubt in our interest as a whole." --more
