Saudi Arabia did not immediately report on the new partnership. It wasn’t immediately clear how the development could affect the six-member GCC meeting, which is expected to focus on the Qatar issue. The Emirati ministry said the new “committee is assigned to cooperate and coordinate between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in all military, political, economic, trade and cultural fields, as well as others, in the interest of the two countries.”The UAE and Saudi Arabia have cultivated even-closer ties in recent years. The fact the GCC meeting in Kuwait was to take place at all is a bit of a surprise, given the unusually sharp criticism among the typically clubby members of the GCC pointed at Doha. Soon after, GCC members Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates closed off their airspace and seaports to Qatar, as well as the small peninsular nation’s sole land border with Saudi Arabia.

Source: Egypt Independent December 05, 2017 07:41 UTC