Gulf Summit In Flux As Questions Emerge About Agenda and Attendance

Gulf Summit In Flux As Questions Emerge About Agenda and Attendance

• By John Hudson
• May 7, 2015 | https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/07/gulf-summit-in-flux-as-questions-emerge-about-agenda-and-attendance/

The White House invited the heads of its closest allies in the Persian Gulf to Washington to reassure them about the emerging Iran deal. One week out, however, it’s not clear which Arab leaders will be coming — and what, if anything, will actually emerge from the talks.
On the agenda is a May 13-14 summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the loose-knit confederation of oil-rich U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Obama administration announced plans for the summit in April after securing a framework nuclear agreement with Iran that both Israel and the Gulf monarchies are skeptical of.
On Thursday, a U.S. official told Foreign Policy the White House had not yet confirmed the attendance of a number of key officials in the GCC — a union that includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.
UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said al Said, will not attend the summit due to health reasons. The attendance of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud remains unknown. “It has not yet been announced who will be representing the kingdom at the summit,” said a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy. “Could be the king or his designee.”
If King Salman skips the summit, the absence of the heads of state of three of the six GCC members could be seen as a snub to the White House, which wants to reassure Arab states that a nuclear deal with Iran won’t threaten their security and to push the countries to collaborate on the construction of a missile defense shield designed to protect the entire Persian Gulf region.https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/07/gulf-summit-in-flux-as-questions-emerge-about-agenda-and-attendance/