The joint meeting between Foreign Ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and representatives of the Consultative Commission, an affiliate of the GCC Supreme Council, started in Jeddah today. Dr. Nizar bin Obeid Madani, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, led Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's delegation to the meeting. At the outset of the meeting, Dr. Mohammed Sabah Al-Salem, Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister of Kuwait, thanked the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for warm welcome and generous hospitality. Al-Salem explained that the agenda of the meeting cover political, security, economic and social issues. A joint meeting is set to gather the financial, economic, commercial and industrial cooperation committees with the members of the Consultative Commission to review the most important issues of joint concern, he added. For his part, Abdulrahman bin Hamad Al-Atiyyah, Secretary General of the GCC, expressed thanks to and appreciation of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud; Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Deputy Premier, Minister of Defense and Aviation and Inspector General; and Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior; for hosting this meeting and providing kind and warm welcome and generous hospitality. Al-Atiyyah lauded the positive role of the Consultative Commission since its establishment many years ago and the efforts exerted by its members to bolster the march of the GCC. He recalled that the Consultative Commission was asked this year to conduct three studies on: ways to increase the productivity of agricultural cash crops as well as upgrade the contribution of agricultural, livestock and fish production; thermal occlusion and climate change; and care for the crippled and ways to curb the spread of the phenomenon. For his part, Dr. Suleiman Al-Shaheen, Chairman of the Commission said his organization was the latest to come into being by the GCC Supreme Council which assigned it to expand the horizontal base of qualitative participation to the GCC build up.
