Kuwait signs up as partner to Saudi anti-democracy repression campaign

Kuwait endorses GCC security pact
By Habib Toumi – 20 November, 2012 – Gulf News

Manama: Kuwait’s government has endorsed a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) security pact signed by the alliance’s interior ministers last week.

“The cabinet has approved the GCC security agreement after it was amended to upgrade it to deal with the latest requirements and various challenges and to bring it in line with the Kuwaiti constitution,” the government said following its weekly session.

Shaikh Ahmad Al Humood, the interior minister, told the cabinet that all the articles in the security pact were “in full harmony with the Kuwaiti constitution and laws.”

Kuwait had reservations about some of the articles in the initial security agreement announced in Manama in December 1994 when the leaders of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE convened for their annual summit.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Oman endorsed it at the time and Qatar joined in 2009.

However, the GCC leaders, at their 2010 summit in Kuwait, called for building on the understanding by putting it to a committee of experts and specialists from the GCC countries.

The agreement was signed last week by the interior ministers of the six member countries.

Al Humood said that the new version of the agreement was fully compatible with the Kuwaiti constitution.

“Its implementation will have to be endorsed by the parliament,” he said.

Kuwait is set to elect a new parliament on December 1 after the legislative house voted in on February 4 was dismissed by a Constitutional Court ruling that said that the decree calling for the elections was unconstitutional.

Last week, Bahrain’s government endorsed the security pact.

The security treaty draft which allows lawbreakers and wanted people to be tracked across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries regardless of their nationality has been endorsed by Bahrain.

“The Cabinet reviewed a memorandum from the Interior Ministry on the GCC security draft and approved it,” Yasser Al Nasser, the Cabinet secretary general, said following the session.

The draft aims at reinforcing security cooperation and coordination between the six member countries of the GCC, Al Nasser said.

Under the treaty, each GCC country is bound to take legal action — based on its own legislation — against citizens or residents who interfere in the domestic affairs of another member. The member countries will also exchange information and expertise to combat all forms of crime, the draft stipulated. …source