Only outgoing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) chairman Oman and host Qatar will be represented at head of state level

DOHA, December 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The annual summit of the six Gulf Arab monarchies is to open Saturday, December 21, without most of the heads of state from the oil-rich bloc, despite mounting prospects of a U.S.-led war against Iraq.

Only outgoing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) chairman Oman and host Qatar will be represented at head of state level during the two-day meeting, whose agenda will be topped by the Iraqi crisis, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an imminent GCC customs union, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The boycott is being led by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, whose country enjoys uneasy relations with Qatar, the tiny Gulf Emirate hosting the summit.

The Saudi Kingdom declared its refusal to participate in any U.S. unilateral attack against Iraq, and also refused to allow the U.S. to use the Saudi bases for such an attack.

Qatar, however, accepted to host the U.S. forces and signed a treaty to this effect with the Washington, angering Arab states and peoples.

The Saudi delegation, like those of Kuwait and Bahrain, will be led by Riyadh's chief diplomat, while the United Arab Emirates will be represented by Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashed al-Maktoum, both vice president and Prime Minister.

"Representation is a matter of sovereignty, up to each member state to decide," the GCC's Qatari Secretary General, Abdul Rahman al-Attiya, told reporters Thursday, December 19.

"The important thing is that they are all coming," said Attiya, who only a few days earlier predicted that all the leaders would show up.

Foreign Ministers of the six-nation alliance met behind closed doors Friday, December 20, to finalize the agenda of the summit.

According to the Qatari daily Al-Raya, Kuwait will ask the summit to take "a unified position on the (December 7) speech by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein" in which he apologized to the Kuwaiti people over the 1990 invasion of their country, but accused the emirate's rulers of plotting with the United States against Baghdad.

The meeting is bound to be overshadowed by the possibility of a massive U.S. strike against Iraq, which appears to have risen following Washington's charge on Thursday that Baghdad was in "material breach" of its UN disarmament obligations.

The United States has 65,000 troops deployed in the Gulf and its buildup for war shows no sign of abating.

Quoting top U.S. defense officials, The Washington Post reported Friday that Washington would beef up its military presence in the region with 50,000 combat troops and tons of military hardware in early January.

The deployment will also include tens of thousands of reservists and will give President George W. Bush the option to start combat operations against Iraq in late January or early February 2002, the officials said.

Qatar, home to some 4,000 U.S. soldiers at the Al-Udeid airbase, the largest U.S. military warehouse in the Middle East, is tipped as a likely major launch pad for any U.S. military action against Iraq.

The summit is due to examine the introduction on January 1 of a long-awaited customs union among the six states, but a senior GCC official said in remarks published Thursday that the bloc had decided to put off implementation of parts of the pact.

Assistant undersecretary for economic affairs Mohammad al-Mazroui said GCC finance ministers had agreed to delay the application of a number of steps for between one and three years.

"The ministers agreed that member states will continue to charge customs duty on goods bought from other states for a limited period," he told the Saudi-owned daily Asharq Al-Awsat, denying the delay of some points would hinder the launch of the union.

The alliance has a combined oil output of about 13 million barrels daily, and more than 50 percent of the world's proven crude reserves. Saudi Arabia alone produces about 7.5 million barrels a day.