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June 14, 2011 (RIYADH) – For the first time in nearly two years the foreign ministers of the oil-rich Arab Gulf states quietly removed reference to the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against the Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir in their final communiqué issued on Tuesday.
- Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal arrives for a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting in Jeddah June 14, 2011 (Reuters)
Top diplomats from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) met in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah for their second regular meeting of the year.
The GCC includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The statements issued at the end of the GCC ministerial meetings since 2009 had always included a paragraph expressing solidarity with Sudan and rejecting the warrant as well as all charges leveled against Bashir who faces ten counts of war crimes, crimes against and genocide he allegedly committed in Darfur.
This was the case in the communiqué adopted at the conclusion of the GCC ministerial meeting held last March in Abu Dhabi.
It is not clear why today’s meeting omitted its usual condemnation of Bashir’s arrest warrant which is the first by the ICC against a sitting head of state.
Last month, Qatar hosted the first conference on the ICC in the Middle East which has seen wide participation by Arab Gulf states. Officials from Qatar and Kuwait have expressed their intention to ratify the Rome Statute at the conference but did not provide a timeframe.
Furthermore GCC states that are part of the Libya contact group endorsed the ICC investigations in Libya which were triggered by a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) referral last February.
The ICC prosecutor announced in May that he is seeking arrest warrants for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and spy chief Abdullah al-Sanoosi on two counts of murder and persecution.
The judges have yet to issue a decision on the prosecutor’s request.
(ST)
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