Addressing the Second Gulf Security Dialogue currently in session in here yesterday, he asserted that “the GCC countries, which have generally scored several successes on the security level, as might be easily noted with the remarkable endorsement of the common strategy for the combat of terrorism-linked extremism, these states still have a long way to go in this regard.”
The countries grouped in the GCC have to take into account the delicate regional and international balances on the one hand and the internal front security, on the other, HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim said.
He saw an inseparable link between energy security, for instance, and national or regional security.
“Energy security, for instance, cannot be viewed in isolation of an overall security strategy,” he noted.
In as much as the matter should not be completely left to (the discretion of) consumer countries, one can not overlook the fact that the Arabian Gulf is the passageway for about half the global oil output, the first deputy premier said adding that such a fact makes Gulf security a vital interest to major international players, especially the United States.
In the end of day, Gulf security should be the responsibility of its nationals to shoulder and would depend basically on mutual confidence-building and self-reliance, he said.
“In reality, however, the international challenges and developments can actually be hardly overlooked, while globalisation is factually broadening its scope to cover various economic, financial, social, cultural and political patterns and in increasingly becoming a matter of fact and a ‘de facto’ that we have to acknowledge and deal with,” he said.
The concept of security should not therefore be viewed from a purely regional perspective, because such a perspective would never give the right picture, the first deputy premier asserted.
HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim called for the promotion of (peaceful) co-existence among world countries, as a best practice for international security in this age of globalisations.
Co-existence among world countries can be attained when world governments show the necessary political will to honour their binding commitments and do not rush unthinkably to serve their own selfish interests at the expense of the collective interest shared in common by all parties, he said, asserting that such a pattern would be the best framework to ensure security.
The need to a foreign, especially American, military presence in the Gulf, was dictated by some realistic requirements, foremost of which being the need to a protection against the threats and the fallouts of the first and the second Gulf wars, he said.
Upon the substantive transformation in the nature of its objectives and missions upon the end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Alliance Organisation (Nato) was showing an increasing interest to play a practical role in the Middle East, the minister added.
It would not be, therefore, totally unthinkable to see such an interest be translated in the future into specific plans of action and training courses to serve either the already existing security relations within GCC member states or between them as a grouping and the rest of the world in general as per the binding security agreements, he said.
International security arrangements, however, can be organised and ensured through other mechanisms that are not necessarily of purely military or security nature, the first deputy premier noted.
HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim also spoke about the perspective of the GCC international security relations terming such security as “not an easy matter” underlining the need to shed some light on the concept of the cherished security and on a number of firm principles which would clarify the general concept of this security.
