Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Abdul Rahman Al-Attiya has said that the bloc would continue negotiating with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) over establishing partnership to reinforce regional security, the Bahrain Tribune reported on Sunday.  

Attiya made the remarks before the GCC -- a political and economic alliance of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar -- starts its annual year-end summit in the Bahraini capital Manama on Monday.

The ongoing negotiations center around the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), which the 28-member NATO decided to launch during a June summit in Turkey's largest city of Istanbul.

The Initiative makes an offer of assistance, advice and dialogue on security matters between NATO and interested countries in the Broader Middle East region, which expands from Morocco to Pakistan.

It aims at promoting practical bilateral cooperation with countries in the region, starting with the GCC member states, said NATO.

It also declared that the Initiative is a voluntary scheme: no country that does not want to take part will be forced to.

Although negotiations between NATO and the GCC over establishing partnership have been underway since the Initiative was put forward, it may be a long way for the two groups to come to a final agreement since the GCC is reviewing NATO's offer with much caution, said analysts.

Early in September, Deputy Secretary General of NATO Alessandro Rizzo said during a visit to Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates that the alliance did not want to impose anything on GCC countries.

He also refused to compare between the NATO initiative and the US-proposed Greater Middle East Initiative, which was brought out in April and considered by some Arabs as "new imperialism."

"NATO is making sure that it is not duplicating what other organizations and institutions are doing," said the second most senior NATO official, adding that Kuwait has already agreed to join the ICI.

The NATO official is currently on a Gulf tour to lobby for the GCC's participation in the ICI. 

(Xinhua News Agency December 20, 2004)