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First Step for Yemen on the Road to Joining GCC
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| Yemen:
a potential new member for the GCC |
DOHA, Jan. 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Yemen has taken a step toward joining the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which has offered Sanaa membership in some of its agencies, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi said in remarks published Wednesday Jan. 2, 2002.
"This is a step on the road of Yemen's entry into the GCC ... Yemen has entered into a real partnership with the Gulf states," Kurbi told the Qatari daily newspaper, Al-Sharq.
During their annual summit which ended in Muscat Monday Jan. 2, 2002, GCC leaders have offered to allow impoverished Yemen to join some GCC agencies in a first step to full membership of the club of oil-rich monarchies.
"The Arabian Peninsula faces a common future," he said, but full Yemeni membership of the bloc grouping Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would require "amendment of the GCC's internal statutes," Kurbi added.
After a period of "tension," Kurbi said, relations "were back to normal in the past few years between Yemen and Gulf Arab states," some of which accused Sanaa of sympathizing with Baghdad during the Gulf crisis sparked by Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Yemen has gradually normalized ties with the Gulf states, notably by resolving long-standing border disputes with its Omani and Saudi neighbors.
On Tuesday, Sanaa has hailed the GCC decision to allow Yemen to join some of its agencies in a first step to full membership of the club of oil-rich monarchies.
"The Yemeni government welcomes favorably the content of the GCC final statement concerning the decision to allow (Sanaa) to join some agencies of the Council," Yemeni government said in a statement Tuesday.
The cabinet, after a session headed by Prime Minister Abdel Qader Bajammal, reminded that "Yemen is an integral part of the Arabic peninsula and the Gulf, and is profoundly linked to the GCC states and peoples."
Yemen is seeking to join the GCC "to strengthen its relations, expand its cooperation and consolidate its complementarities with GCC member states," said the government statement cited by the official Yemeni News Agency SABA.
After a two-day summit in Muscat, the leaders of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said Monday that Yemen would be allowed to join the Gulf council of health ministers, the regional education bureau and the council of labor and social affairs ministers.
Within the same context, Sanaa could also send a football team to the Gulf Cup, due in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, later this month.
The GCC had so far rejected membership requests by Yemen, an impoverished republic contrary to the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf.
However, the only Arab country on the Gulf which is not a member of the GCC is Iraq.
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