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The Gulf Cooperation Council says it will participate in actions against terrorism.
©Washington Post
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 24, 2001
CAIRO -- A group of six Persian Gulf Arab states Sunday pledged support for an international coalition against terrorism, providing important support for Washington's efforts to track down those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The Gulf Cooperation Council, meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, expressed "the willingness of its members to participate in any joint action that has clearly defined objectives. It is willing to enter into an alliance that enjoys the support of the international community to fight international terrorism and to punish its perpetrators," said Bahrain's foreign minister, Mohammed Bin Mubarak Khalifa.
At the same time, the group -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- urged other nations to halt what its members described as "terror acts" by Israel against Palestinians, reflecting continued sensitivity among Arab governments toward popular anger and U.S. support for Israel.
However, the Associated Press reported that Saudi Arabia won't allow the United States to launch retaliatory flights from the Prince Sultan Air Base, the base south of Riyadh that the United States wants to use as a command and control center. The U.S. State Department maintains, though, that Saudi military cooperation with Washington is "excellent."
Sunday's statement of support by the group's Council of Ministers came one day after the United Arab Emirates severed relations with Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were the only countries that recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government, and the move by the United Arab Emirates adds to the growing international isolation of the ultraconservative Islamic movement that harbors Osama bin Laden and key elements of his terrorist organization.
"The United Arab Emirates does not believe that it is possible to continue to maintain diplomatic relations with a government that refuses to respond to the clear will of the international community," United Arab Emirates officials said Saturday as they announced the closing of the Afghan embassy in Abu Dhabi and withdrawal of their mission in Kabul.
Saudi Arabia is reportedly considering cutting diplomatic relations with the Taliban, and Pakistan has pledged support for U.S. efforts to apprehend bin Laden.
As the antiterrorism coalition being assembled by President Bush takes shape and military hardware begins moving into Central Asia for a possible strike on Afghanistan, the support of Arab and other Muslim countries will be important in preventing perceptions that U.S. retaliation for the Sept. 11 attacks would be aimed at Islam rather than terrorism. In its statement Sunday, the gulf council condemned any attempt to link Islam with what it described as "these heinous terrorist acts."
Governments throughout the Muslim world are keenly aware that while their citizens generally share Washington's abhorrence of terrorism, many are upset by U.S. support for Israel, and some see bin Laden as a folk hero for standing up to the world's superpower. Popular anger over U.S. military action against a Muslim nation such as Afghanistan could destabilize governments in the Middle East or at least restrict their ability to assist the coalition. In its statement Sunday, the gulf council urged the United States not to use the attacks on New York as a pretext "to ignore what is happening to the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli government."
Egypt's top religious scholar denounced the anticipated U.S. attacks as being directed against Islam and defended Palestinian suicide bombers on the grounds that they are acting in self-defense against an occupying army.
"Jihad doesn't mean aggression in Islam, it means defending one's soul, land and nation against those who attack them," said the grand sheik of Al Azhar, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, head of one of the Muslim world's oldest and most important centers of religious scholarship. "Bin Laden expresses his personal point of view. He doesn't represent Islam."