JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Sept 7, (Agencies): Foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council have called on Britain to expel two leaders of Bahrain’s Shiite opposition charged with plotting to oust the kingdom’s Sunni government.
The six GCC states urged Britain “to deal seriously with terrorist groups and individuals supporting terrorism... and not to grant them political asylum, or allow them to exploit the climate of freedom to damage the security and stability of member countries.”
In a statement issued after a meeting of the bloc in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah late Monday, the ministers also expressed support for Bahrain’s move to curb “terror,” after it charged 23 Shiite opposition activists, including the two London-based leaders, on Saturday with “forming a terror network”.

Husain Mashaima is secretary general of Haq — the Movement of Liberties and Democracy — a Shiite group which rejected as inadequate 2002 reforms intended to put an end to Shiite-led unrest that rocked the 35-island archipelago through the 1990s.
Saeed al-Sheehabi is secretary general of the Bahrain Freedom Islamic Movement.
The crackdown on the opposition activists, which followed sporadic acts of violence in recent months, has raised tensions in the runup to an Oct 23 parliamentary election.
Sheikh Ali Salman — leader of the mainstream Shiite opposition Islamic National Accord Association, which took part in the last election in 2006 winning 17 of the 40 seats in parliament — warned last month that it would “lead to more protests.”

Union
The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has made much progress to clear the last obstacles for the bloc’s long-awaited customs union but total completion will take two to three years, Kuwait’s finance minister said.
The introduction of a customs union in 2003 had been hailed by officials as a major achievement, countering critics’ claims that the Gulf Arab bloc consisting of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman would be unable to realise economic integration in the world’s biggest oil exporting region.
But differences remain and trucks transporting goods have been held up for days mainly at the border between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, an issue which has cast fresh doubt over the efficiency of the customs union plan.

“I don’t say there are obstacles in the way of implementing the agreement but there are different opinions among us,” Mustapha al-Shamali, whose country holds the rotating Gulf presidency, told reporters after a meeting of Gulf finance ministers in the Saudi port city of Jeddah late on Monday.
“We need more time to implement the remaining items,” he added, citing the need to work out details for applying some custom duties among other issues.
The GCC’s attempts over the past 29 years to emulate the European Union’s economic integration model have been dogged by delays in a monetary union plan and regional rivalry and mistrust between its two biggest economies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Shamali also said the finance ministers did not discuss the planned GCC monetary union, but that the establishment of a joint Gulf central bank was on its way.

“The brothers, the central bank governors, continue their meetings regarding this,” he said.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain are pursuing the long-delayed monetary union project after the United Arab Emirates withdrew in 2009, three years after Oman did the same.
The four states launched the forerunner for the joint central bank in March. The head of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Muhammad al-Jasser, is the chairman of the council and Rasheed al-Maraj, the central bank governor of Bahrain, his deputy.
The monetary union plan has lost appeal as the economic power of fellow oil exporters rises, and cash-rich Qatar, whose economy more than doubled over the past five years, is gaining more regional influence.
The UAE and Oman repeatedly said rejoining the union was not on the cards.

March
Kuwait’s chief diplomat Sheikh Mohammed Salem Al-Sabah said on Tuesday that the march of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) may be “slow but firm”. Speaking at a joint news conference with GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman Al-Attiyah, Kuwait’s foreign minister highlighted the importance of the joint meeting of foreign ministers held with ministers of finance, trade and industry over the need to speed up the establishment of the Gulf Common Market and eliminate all hurdles hindering further cooperation among the six member states.
Sheikh Mohammed said that achieving such a feat would further bolster the GCC’s role at the World Trade Organization (WTO) toward an effective steering of the international trade policies conforming with the key economic reputation the entity enjoys at the global level. He said that member states will continue work to achieve a customs union and hold an annual review of the mechanism for this system, as well as setting up an e-clearing system for goods exchanged among them.
Sheikh Mohammed said that there were sharp diffrences when the idea of the customs union was raised, but noted that such views have been brought closer since then, thus promising a near happy ending to this project. He said finance ministers are due to refer a final report on the matter to Gulf leaders during the the summit in Abu Dhabi.

Obstacles
Kuwaiti Minister of Commerce and Industry Ahmad Al-Haroun said the GCC leaders are eager to remove all obstacles that could impede a smooth cargo movement among the GCC member states. Speaking to KUNA following a joint GCC ministerial meeting, the Kuwaiti minister said: “Customs protection is a key obstacle to a smooth goods movement among the GCC countries.” He opined that the elimination of all forms of local agents would undoubtedly create some sort of inter-GCC cargo movement freedom, thus leading to competition over the revamping of commodities and services.
“Kuwait is one of the early countries which have adopted this principle for abolishing all forms of protection for the local agent,” he boasted. However, the Kuwaiti minister said the GCC member states are going ahead with the completion of inter-Gulf uniform customs procedures, which have been in effect since 2003.

Talks
Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers have said they “welcome” the relaunch of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks but warned that Israeli “acts of aggression” may compromise them.
“The ministerial council welcomes... the resumption of direct Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations... in hope that the talks (which were relaunched) in Washington will lead to... the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital,” a statement said.
But after a meeting in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah on Monday night, the six ministers warned that “continuing acts of aggression” by Israel could “undermine efforts to restore peace and stability in the region.”
Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas resumed direct negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Thursday, 20 months after he broke them off when Israel launched a devastating offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
The Arab League gave its backing to the Palestinian president’s decision to relaunch the talks but last week the 22-nation bloc’s secretary general Amr Mussa noted widespread pessimism in the region about their prospects.

On Iran, the Gulf ministers said they were following developments in the standoff over its controversial nuclear programme with “deep concern.”
They said they hoped Iran would cooperate with diplomatic efforts to allay suspicions about its intentions.
They supported “the right of countries in the region to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes... under the standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency,” and called on Israel, which has the region’s sole if undeclared nuclear arsenal, to apply those standards as well.
The ministers called on Iraqi leaders to “form a national consensus government... away from any sectarian or ethnic considerations and foreign interference.”
Six months after an inconclusive general election, Iraqi leaders remain at loggerheads over the formation of a new governing coalition.
Washington has called on them to form a national unity administration that ensures representation for all of Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups.
Iraqi politicians have blamed meddling by neighbouring countries for the deadlock, in what has been widely seen as an allusion to regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The GCC groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Also:
KUWAITI CITY: National Assembly Speaker Jassim Al-Khorafi stressed on Tuesday that Kuwait and its people strongly supported Bahrain in fighting terrorism. In a cable sent to speaker of the Bahraini parliament Khalifa Al-Dhahrani, after the kingdom announced uncovering a terror plot, Al-Khorafi said he followed up with great concern the arrest of the terrorists.
On behalf of the members of the National Assembly, he strongly condemned the criminal plots that violated the principles of the Islamic society and rejected by the whole international community. He wished Bahrain peace and security. Al-Khorafi also sent a similar cable to head of Bahrain’s Shura council Ali Al-Saleh.
Bahrain’s Ambassador to Kuwait Sheikh Khalifa Bin Hamad Al Khalifa expressed on Tuesday appreciation of the support of Kuwait’s Amir, government, and people to his country in combating terrorism.
Al Khalifa said in a press release that His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah called Bahraini officials after the kingdom uncovered a terror plot. That reflected the strong Kuwaiti-Bahraini relations, he stressed. The Kuwaiti support, shows that the country has a wise leadership that was keen on security as a main pillar for development and peace, he highlighted. He expressed hope that Kuwait and Bahrain would always enjoy security and prayed that Allah would protect the two countries.