Manama: The Six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have asked the Arab League to cancel Arab summit scheduled to take place in May, Bahrain's foreign minister said on Tuesday.
The summit is scheduled to be held in Baghdad on May 10 and 11. However, on his Twitter account, Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa said the Gulf countries have written to Amr Mousa, the secretary-general of the Cairo-based Arab League asking for the cancellation of the summit.
Sources told Gulf News that the move by the Gulf alliance was expected after Iraqi leaders had harshly criticised Manama and Riyadh over the deployment last month of units from the Peninsula Shield, the military arm of the GCC, in Bahrain to help restore security and stability in the country following weeks of political turmoil.
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki warned last month that the deployment of the military units risked igniting a sectarian war in the region.
"This has become like a Sunni mobilisation against the Shiites," he told the BBC.
Earlier this month, he listed Bahrain among nations where demands by protesters should be heeded.
The Arab League summit is scheduled to decide on the new leader of the pan-Arab organisation after Amr Mousa said he was quitting to run in the Egyptian presidential elections.
Qatar has named Abdul Rahman Al Atiyyah, the former GCC secretary-general for the position while Egypt has selected Mustafa Al Fiqqi to succeed Amr Mousa whose term ends on May 15.
In Cairo, the 6th of April Youth Movement, an Egyptian opposition group, on Tuesday rejected the nomination of Al Fiqqi, the former vice-chairman of the Arab Parliament and a prominent member of the National Democratic Party for "serving the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak."