Manama: Bahrain will host the GCC summit next year, the Gulf leaders agreed.
“We have the honour to invite you to hold the next summit of our Supreme Council in your second country, Bahrain, in order to continue our discussions into the various developments that are of interest to our societies and that help achieve the hopes and meet the ambitions of our people for the sake of a more prosperous and advanced future,” King Hamad Bin Eisa Al Khalifa said.
The king was speaking during the concluding session of the two-day summit held in Riyadh.
“We wish to express our deep gratitude to our brother the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz and to the Saudi government and people for their gracious hospitality which reflects genuine fraternal feelings and the robust bonds between GCC countries and peoples,” King Hamad said.
“We would like also to express our profound gratitude to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques for his wise chairmanship of this summit and which had positive effects on the quality decisions we have made and the positive results we have achieved in elevating our relations and consolidating our shared interests,” he said.
The GCC countries hold a summit every year in December, with the host country choice often based on a rotating system using the Arabic alphabet.
The last time Bahrain hosted the GCC summit was in December 2012. The summit next year will be the 37th to be held by the GCC established in 1981 in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi.
