By NNN-KUNA
Manama : Iraqi National Security Advisor Mowfaq al-Rabeai has called for a new era of Gulf security to achieve peace and stability in the region.
Al-Rabeai made the call in his speech addressing an ongoing security conference in Bahrain Sunday. The Fourth Manama Dialogue Forum, the largest gathering of Gulf national security chiefs, is annually organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The event is a good opportunity for the conferees to share views and visions on security challenges facing the Gulf region, and fruitful mechanisms for successful cooperation at bilateral and multilateral levels.
Such a new era should include, inter alia, clear-cut and unequivocal commitments towards combating terror, extremism and communalism, human-trafficking, drug-running, he said. “This is the only way for the region (to achieve peace and stability), otherwise sectarian conflicts will prevail,” he said.
Al-Rabeai said that regional security could not be isolated from the security of Iraq, nor could there be national reconciliation without regional reconciliation.
He also warned that in case of Iraq’s division, the region would witness more serious disputes between Sunnis and Shiites.
The chief Iraqi national security official said that there was a drop of more than 70 per cent in the size of violent clashes in Iraq and that the acts of violence in Baghdad were now similar to those in any large capital in the world. He also said that most of the terrorist acts now had political, rather than sectarian, overtones.
Al-Rabeai called upon the Gulf countries to contribute to creating security and stability in Iraq.
He also urged the US to enter into dialogue with Iran and Syria to boost regional security, revealing that Iraq would hammer out a strategic security agreement with the US.
The Fourth Manama Dialogue Forum brings together Gulf national security chiefs and security officials from neighbouring countries including Iran, Yemen and Iraq, and several other Arab and foreign countries in order to consider ways and means of creating stability and security in the region.
The two-day forum is also attended by representatives from the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany, Britain, India, Australia, Japan, Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan, which all share strategic interests with the Gulf nations.
The forum discusses an array of key issues, chiefly Gulf-US relations, regional energy and security, Iraq, communal relationships in Gulf societies, Gulf armed forces and security, foreign threats, economic security, sanctions and regional stability.