RIYADH: The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council has denied reports of a planned meeting between the bloc and Iran on Sept. 22.
The denial came on Saturday after some misleading reports about a scheduled Tehran-GCC meeting appeared in a section of Gulf and Iranian press.
Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg, GCC’s assistant secretary-general for negotiations and settlements, denied the reports of the meeting, saying: “No meeting has been scheduled.”
He did not explain it further, but a Gulf diplomat, who preferred anonymity, also dismissed the idea of such a meeting. “There is no meeting, as far as I know” he told Arab News. He called on Iran to stop meddling in the GCC affairs and adopt “a policy of peace and friendship, that will eventually go a long way in restoring security in the region.”
A report published in a Gulf daily has quoted Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossain Amir-Abdollahian as saying that “the initiative to hold a meeting between Iran and GCC came from Qatar and Oman.”
There have been no detailed comments from the GCC in this regard so far. Addressing a joint press conference recently with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said the Kingdom was keen on good relations with Iran provided that it changes its policy of interference in the affairs of countries in the region.
Al-Jubeir said Iranian support for President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria is a tragedy for the Syrian people. He said Iran must change its hostile policy if it actually wants good relations with its neighboring countries. “The Kingdom is closely monitoring Iran’s quest for uranium enrichment,” he said. Iran-GCC ties historically been strained because of unhelpful Iranian policies.
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