RIYADH: Ministers of interior from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) pledged on Wednesday to work together to tackle terrorism, money laundering and organized crime.
“The move to step up security and stability, as discussed by the interior ministers, requires coordination between all nations in the region,” GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Al-Attiyah said after a ministerial meeting in Riyadh.
“Gulf states are facing serious challenges in the forms of terrorism and organized crime that call for increased vigilance and intelligence sharing”.
The ministers, who were attending the consultative meeting, discussed a whole range of security issues currently confronting the Gulf region, as well as plans and policies to tackle terror cells, drug traffickers, pirates and swindlers.
They also covered existing steps taken to implement security-related decisions, ways to boost the exchange of information among GCC security agencies, and the implications of recent developments in the Middle East region.
Interior Minister Prince Naif led the Saudi delegation and opened the meeting.
It was not known at the time of going to press whether the issue of Israel, which is accused of deploying intelligence agents throughout the Gulf region, was discussed.
A senior GCC official recently claimed that the Israeli secret service Mossad had established an espionage network in Gulf states, with their agents operating under the cover of top-ranking executives and professionals in government and private organizations.
The official refused to comment on accusations that Iran was helping drug traffickers, a claim rejected by Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmed in a conference speech in Riyadh on Tuesday.
An official at the meeting claimed a burgeoning drug trade often stemmed from security problems. He refused to rule out a link between drug traffickers and Al-Qaeda, which allegedly uses drug money to finance its operations.
He confirmed that Saudi security forces had successfully defeated deviant groups inside the Kingdom.
“Thanks to Allah, we have attained great success in this respect on a national level as well as on a Gulf level,” he said.
Kuwaiti Interior Minister Sheikh Jaber Khaled Al-Sabah chaired the meeting as his country currently holds the GCC presidency.
According to figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Saudi Arabia leads the charts in seizures of drugs, especially amphetamines.
Arab News
