Kuwait, December 12: The Afghan war and the Iran nuclear crisis are among the threats to security in the Gulf region, Kuwaiti foreign minister and deputy prime minister Sheikh Muhammed Sabah Al Salem Al Sabah said.
Sheikh Muhammed was addressing delegations from more than 25 countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council at the opening of the sixth Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain.
Threats to GCC security ran from “Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, go through Iran’s confrontation with the international community, to the reality of Palestine and the suffering of the Palestinian people, down the Horn of Africa, to the crisis in Yemen,” he said.
And in an implicit swipe at Iran, he spoke of “when people call for rebellion against the regime, challenging the government and calling for the overthrow of the government in place.”
Gulf officials “should recognise the risks of abusing ideologies in the relations between states,” he added.
Iran has been accused by the West and various Gulf states of interfering in the affairs of its neighbours and attempting to foment instability.
And he added: “We must look closely at the demographic situation of our six GCC countries, and we will note that there are real demographic challenges in the mid- and long-term.”
These challenges included the projected 30 percent rise in the population of the GCC countries by 2020; the large percentage of young people; and the large number of foreign workers in the Gulf.
The consequently large remittances being sent out of the Gulf and the growing number of children of foreign workers in GCC countries also posed a problem, he added.
“This generation has no other home than the GCC countries — they were born, have lived and worked here, and they represent a great challenge in terms of absorption into society from a cultural and a social viewpoint,” he said.
The Manama Dialogue conference is sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. This year’s conference, which lasts through Sunday, will focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iran.
—Agencies