Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman held talks with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the United Arab Emirates, during a meeting in Riyadh on Monday. They reviewed means of enhancing bilateral cooperation in various fields and discussed regional and international developments. — SPA Saudi Gazette report
RIYADH — The Council of Ministers on Monday strongly condemned the heinous killing of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by the self-proclaimed Islamic State group in the northeastern Libyan city of Derna on Sunday. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman chaired the Cabinet's weekly session at Al-Yamamah Palace here. The Cabinet offered deep condolences to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the government and people of Egypt as well as to the families of the victims. In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency following the session, Minister of Culture and Information Adel Al-Toraifi said that the Cabinet welcomed the new resolution to fight terror, adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on Thursday. The Cabinet drew attention to chapter seven of the resolution, which calls for draining the sources of terrorist funding and beefing up monitoring of the areas under the control of terrorists. It also emphasized that the Kingdom is in the forefront of countries calling for fighting terrorism, renouncing it and criminalizing its supporters. While renewing its condemnation and absolute rejection of the Houthi coup in Yemen, the Cabinet stressed the need for supporting the efforts of all Yemenis to resume the political process peacefully in accordance with the Gulf initiative and the Yemeni national dialogue. The Cabinet also called for lending a helping hand to the Yemeni people to help them get out of the crisis, as well as to maintain the security, stability and unity of the country and the region as a whole. Al-Toraifi said the Cabinet reviewed a report by the Military Service Council and decided to replace the term ‘armed forces' with the term ‘military forces' wherever it appears in the officers service regulation, personnel service regulation and the military retirement regulation, as well as in regulations, royal orders and decrees and relevant decisions and regulations except for those whose application is limited to the armed forces in the Ministry of Defense. It also approved replacing the words “by order of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces” with the words “by order of the supreme commander of all military forces” wherever it is used in personnel service regulation, regulations, royal orders and decrees, relevant decisions and regulations. The Cabinet also approved an agreement with Spain to boost cooperation in the areas of security and fighting crime, which was signed in Jeddah in May 2014. According to the agreement, the two countries will cooperate in the maintenance of security and the fight against all forms of crime, including terrorism-related offenses, funding and supporting of terrorism, as well as in the fight against all kinds of smuggling related crimes. The two countries will also provide assistance and exchange information in a number of areas, including search and identification of missing persons or those who are believed to have died.
