Damascus Declaration commitment still strong, Emirates says
United Arab Emirates, Politics, 5/8/2000

United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Rashed Abdullah on Sunday that the Damascus Declaration is standing in commitment and firm ties among its member states. He added that Egypt has advocated the call for convening the Damascus Declaration member states and a meeting will be held soon for them.

The Gulf News Agency quoted Abdullah as saying in a statement to the UAE daily al-Bayan in reply to statements on the death of that declaration that such statements are seasonal and are made by certain countries at certain times to speak of the failure of certain matters and the success of others, adding that the Damascus Declaration is still valid as a commitment and a link among the declaration's eight-member states (Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the UAE).

On the possibility of convening an Arab summit at the continued calls to this effect launched by UAE President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahyan in order to restore Arab solidarity, the UAE minister said that there is no logical reason preventing the convening of the Arab summit, adding that fears of not attaining positive results and fears of the failure of such a summit are behind the hesitation toward convening it.

He stressed that the UAE is convinced that convening this Arab summit will not be doomed to failure but that it will ultimately be a success, adding that, "The amount of success depends on the extent of unanimous stand to be attained among its members."

The UAE minister also said that the internal security developments in Iran have not given a chance for the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council to realize the objective of forming solid relations built on good neighborhood and exchanged interests.

The UAE minister expressed his hope that Iran will prove its moderate inclination through minimizing the practice of power and military maneuvers which are estimated at 40 military exercises, as well as other small maneuvers which are all also covering the three disputed Gulf islands (Lesser Tunb, Greater Tunb and Abu Mousa)." He commented that the number and intensity of maneuvers are of great concern to the UAE because Iran has an objective behind holding them.

Previous Stories:
  El-Mahdi concludes visit to UAE today   (5/4/2000)
  UAE President gets a message from Djibouti counterpart   (5/3/2000)
  UAE president receives a telephone call from Mubarak   (5/2/2000)

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