Year on Invasion, KSA To Announce Union with Bahrain
Gulf Arab leaders meeting on Monday are expected to announce a political union between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, a government minister in the gulf state said.
Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also includes Kuwait, Qatar,
the United Arab Emirates and Oman, are to meet in Riyadh.
Local Bahraini newspapers have reported that Saudi Arabia is seeking closer union with Bahrain, where pro-democracy campaigners have carried out a year-long revolution against the US-backed ruling monarchy.
"I expect there will be an announcement of two or three countries. We can't be sure but I have a strong expectation," Samira Rajab, Bahrain's minister of state for information affairs, said on Sunday.
She further said that "sovereignty will remain with each of the countries and they would remain as UN members, but they would unite in decisions regarding foreign relations, security, military and economy."
The Bahraini opposition condemned the planned announcement, saying it would be wrong to make any deal without a referendum.
"It is not the right of the ruling al-Khalifa family to decide whether Bahrain will join Saudi Arabia in any type of unity without a decision from the Bahrainis," Mattar Ibrahim, a leading figure in the opposition al-Wefaq party said.
Ibrahim admitted concern that any unity deal would mean a further crackdown on protesters.
Similarly, another "al-Wefaq" official Jasim Husain stressed that "the issues facing Bahrain are local, not regional."
"There is little the Saudis can do: they sent troops but failed because the crisis is still ongoing, and that's because it requires a political solution," he added, noting that "any agreement must get the people's approval, at least in Saudi Arabia."
"I suspect this supposed union is just rhetoric," he concluded.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org
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