Manama: Bahrain’s interior minister has called for the reformulation of security arrangements between Arab countries to include more areas of cooperation and to boost readiness to deal with emergencies.
“As a response to security threats, there is a need to redraft some agreements between countries of the Arab League to make them more inclusive of areas related to security cooperation and to be able to deal with anticipated as well as unexpected crises,” Shaikh Rashid Bin Abdullah Al Khalifa said.
“However, these agreements should not be inconsistent with national legislations or the Charter of the Arab League,” the minister said as he addressed the meeting of Arab interior ministers in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Arabs need to work together to be able to protect their unity and confront challenges in unison, he added.
“We are supposedly within the same security system, and the events unfolding in our Arab world should stimulate us to coordinate our positions and unify our stances in order to achieve stability, maintain the sovereignty of our states and ward off dangers that threaten their unity,” Shaikh Rashid said.
“Internal conflicts, under all their forms, have serious implications that impact all individuals and groups and result in homelessness, poverty, absence of productivity, decline in growth rates and lack of basic services provided by the government.”
In the aftermath of all the acts of terrorism that the world had to endure, there is a critical need to work together and join efforts to identify the common threats to social security, the minister said.
“Dealing with security issues on an individual basis largely depends on circumstances and conditions surrounding them,” he said. “Violence and extremism are the main challenges we are facing. The interaction through sessions, bilateral meetings and recommendations of the committees concerned have stressed the need to exert more efforts and take measures and decisions to protect Arab security, especially at these times of transformations and crises,” he said.
Shaikh Rashid said that Bahrain was able to deal with the recent security challenges.
“Today, we are dealing with acts of violence that target policemen. Thank God, the operations to identify the culprits and apprehend them promptly have been successful. However, we do deplore the use of brotherly countries to threaten the security of Bahrain,” he said.
Three policemen, including a UAE officer, were killed last week in a deadly blast in the village of Daih in the suburbs of the capital Manama.
The explosion sparked deep emotions in Bahrain, the UAE and beyond and several countries as well as the United Nations promptly condemned the attack.
