Ahmadinejad to attend Gulf Arab summit

Doha: A senior Gulf official on Sunday welcomed the participation of Iranian president in Monday's Gulf Cooperation Council summit.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will take part in the GCC leaders' meeting here for the first time. He was invited by the summit host, Emir of Qatar Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, amid increasing tension between Tehran and Washington over Iran's controversial nuclear programme.

"We welcome the presence of the Iranian guest in the summit," GCC Secretary General Abdul Rahman Al Atiyyah told reporters in Doha today, ahead of a meeting of the six GCC states finance ministers.

He declined to state the reasons behind the invitation but said, "It is not the first time we invite leaders on this level to the summit."

Previous summits were attended by a number of world leaders including former French President Jacque Chirac, former South African President Nelson Mandela and the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

An Iranian official was quoted earlier by an Iranian news agency of as describing Ahmadinejad's presence in the summit as "an important event."

"Such meetings can help promote mutual understanding and find ways to boost cooperation" between the Gulf states and their Muslim neighbour, said Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini.

Gulf leaders are expected to urge Ahmadinejad to make Iran's nuclear project "transparent" and "help ease tension" in the region, a member of a Gulf delegation to the summit told Gulf News today.

The GCC states are also worried about Iran's growing influence in the region, particularly in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

According to the GCC official, the issue of the three UAE islands, occupied by Iran since 1971, will also be discussed at the Doha summit.

But Hosseini claimed the three islands were "Iranians and are inseparable parts of Iran," a line Iran has taken for years. It has refused repeated calls by the UAE to refer the issue to international arbitration or bilateral talks.