Gulf Arab states have agreed to create a joint rapid deployment force to address security threats in the world's top oil-exporting region, a senior Gulf official said Tuesday. The force would intervene in situations similar to an incursion into Saudi Arabia by infiltrators earlier this year, Abdulrahman Al-Attiyah, Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, told a news conference at a summit of Gulf leaders. “The force will be one of the pillars that will support stability and security in the region,” Attiyah said, without giving further details. At their summit in 2000, Gulf Arab leaders signed a joint defense pact and discussed a plan to set up a rapid deployment force. The plan was initially proposed by Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. The Gulf countries are opposed to any military action against neighboring Iran over its nuclear program, Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah said. “We do not accept any military action against Iran,” Sheikh Mohammad said at the end of a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council. “Any tension in the region will reflect on our situation. We have many problems already and we do not want any more,” the minister, whose country chairs the GCC, told a news conference. “We urge Iran to comply with what is required from it by the International Atomic Energy Agency and deal positively with international legal resolutions.” The summit's final communique said Gulf leaders welcome “international efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear program crisis through peaceful means.” The GCC leaders also “affirm total backing for Saudi Arabia in facing the aggressions by armed infiltrators, express total solidarity with Saudi Arabia and support its right to defend its territories,” the communique added. Meanwhile, a Gulf monetary union pact took effect Tuesday, the Kuwaiti finance minister said in a move that brings the energy rich region closer toward launching its own single currency. “The Gulf monetary union pact has come into effect,” Finance Minister Mustafa Al-Shamali, was quoted as saying by the official KUNA news agency. “Accordingly, GCC central bank governors will work out a timetable for the establishment of the Gulf central bank to ultimately launch the single currency,” said Shamali.
