Manama forum to discuss security, nuclear energy

Manama: Sectarian politics and nuclear energy in the Middle East will top the agenda of the Manama Dialogue, a security forum for senior international leaders, to be held in the Bah-rain capital between December 12 and 14.

The meeting is expected to "draw together the highest concentration to date of policymakers involved in regional security," and delegations will include "a measured blend of prime ministers, defence ministers, foreign ministers, national security advisers, and military and intelligence chiefs", according to the organisers, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

No names were put forward by the IISS, and diplomats posted in Bah-rain could not confirm the names of the participants from their countries.

At last year's forum, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, the head of the US delegation, dismissed a US intelligence conclusion that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons programme and called on the international community to keep up economic, fin-ancial and diplomatic pressures on Tehran.

Gates warned the 200 delegates from 23 nations attending the annual security conference that the world's leaders should take "peaceful but effective measures necessary to bring a long-term change of policies in Tehran".

Gates, who had an attentive audience during his address, however, waded into controversy when he said, in a reply to a question by a Bahraini minister, that he did not think that Israel's nuclear programme posed a threat to the region. The answer was greeted by laughter from the audience.

No Iranian official attended the conference amid claims of sharp divergences between the Iranians and IISS about names of guests from Tehran.

In 2006, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki was the star of the conference, entertaining close ties with the media, participants and officials.

Other topics to be discussed at the Manama Dialogue in its fifth year this December include the status and role of the US in the regional balance of power, the economics of regional security, security in a global context, trans-national problems of Afghanistan in the context of regional security, the future of regional security and the changing regional security architecture.