Member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Sunday pledged total support for efforts to track down the perpetrators of the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington.
The council’s foreign ministers said in a statement that the GCC "expressed its total support and cooperation for international efforts to find the authors of the terrorist acts and bring them to justice," reported the Gulf Daily News.
The ministers of the GCC, grouping Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, issued the statement after meeting to discuss their stance at the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah.
The chairman of the session, Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, told the ministers that the Gulf states were ready to join an international anti-terrorism alliance that must have clearly defined objectives.
"The council ... asserts the willingness of its members to participate in any joint action that has clearly defined objectives," he told the opening session.
"It is willing to enter into an alliance that enjoys the support of the international community to fight international terrorism to punish its perpetrators without trying to defame Arabs and Muslims," he said.
"We will study the latest developments and coordinate our positions on the fallout and dangers" from the suicide attacks in New York and Washington, he added.
The meeting came amid US military preparations to retaliate for the September 11 attacks that left more than 7,000 people dead or missing.
The US has said that Osama bin Laden, based in Afghanistan, is the prime suspect.
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement said on Sunday Bin Laden was missing and it did not know his whereabouts.
US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned that Washington had the right to self-defense and needed no additional approval from the UN.
The GCC meeting followed talks by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal in Washington, in which he urged the US to pursue justice rather than vengeance in its campaign to track down the perpetrators.
The GCC states have strongly condemned the attacks and vowed to back a US-led campaign to curb "terrorism."
But they did not specify what role they would play in such an effort.
The extraordinary meeting of the ministers also comes amid growing Gulf calls for an international alliance to stop Israeli attacks on Palestinians, said the paper.
The official UAE news agency (WAM) had quoted a foreign ministry official as saying the meeting would also discuss a proposal by UAE President Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan to set up a "parallel alliance to press for a just and lasting solution for the Middle East conflict."
It said the Palestinian people "must be able to set up their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital."
The ministers at their meeting also underlined that they had "raised with deep worry the dangerous consequences of the attacks against economic and official buildings in the US," and expressed "their condolences and sympathy to the American government and people and the families of the victims," the paper added – Albawaba.com
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