By Xinhua
Doha : The 28th annual summit of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is to kick off in the Qataricapital of Doha on Monday.
The following is an introduction of the bloc’s summit which will bring together leaders and senior officials from six Gulf Arab nations sitting on huge oil and gas reserves.
WHAT IS GCC?
Headquartered in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, the GCC is a political and economic alliance made up of six Gulf Arab states –Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Qatar and Bahrain.
The bloc was formed at a summit in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabiin May 1981 against the backdrop of the 1979 Islamic Revolution inIran and the Iraq-Iran war which broke out in 1980 and lasted till1988.
It aims to boost wide-ranging cooperation between members and, through collective security, to guard against any outside threat and Islamic extremism.
In 1984, the GCC created a collective defense force — the Saudi-based Peninsula Shield.
Striving for economic integration, the bloc launched a customs union in 2003 and aims to set up a common market by 2007 and to adopt a single currency in 2010.
Together, GCC countries pump about 16 million barrels of crude oil per day and possess about 45 percent of the world’s proven crude reserves.
HOW DOES GCC FUNCTION?
The main functioning bodies of the GCC are the Supreme Council,the Ministerial Council and the Secretariat-General.
The Supreme Council is the highest decision-making body of the alliance, consisting of heads of state of the six GCC members. Thecouncil’s yearly presidency rotates among the six countries in Arabic alphabetical order. The council meets every year end. Unanimous approval is required for any key decisions.
The Ministerial Council is composed of foreign ministers or other ministers. It proposes policies, works out the agenda of theannual GCC summit and carries out the decisions.
The Secretariat-General, the administrative body of GCC’s dailywork, is made up of a secretary-general and three assistant secretary-generals. The secretary-general is appointed by the Supreme Council with a three-year term. The incumbent is Abdul Rahman al-Attiya, a former Qatari Foreign Ministry official.
WHICH WILL ATTEND?
Besides leaders of the six GCC members, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to attend the summit, the first time that an Iranian president is invited to a GCC annual meeting.
WHAT IS TO BE DISCUSSED?
Economic integration and regional security are expected to top the agenda.
Leaders of the six Gulf countries are to thrash out an array ofissues, chiefly the Palestinian issue, the Middle East peace process in light of the outcomes of the recent Annapolis conference, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia and the Iran-UAE islandsdispute.
They will also approve the establishment of the Gulf common market in early 2008, assess obstacles hindering the implementation of the customs union launched in January 2003 and examine recommendations on the timetable of a monetary union originally planned for 2010.