Bahrain's premier has backed Saudi Arabia's plan for the creation of a Gulf union, a report said Sunday, but the nation's Shiite opposition is demanding the proposal be put to a referendum.
The "option of a (Gulf Co-operation Council) union has become urgent," Bahraini Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman was quoted as saying by the Saudi Al-Riyadh daily.
Khalifa said the six GCC nations, whose foreign ministers were meeting in Riyadh ahead of a meeting of their countries' leaders in the Saudi capital on Monday, must cooperate to ensure security in the region. The GCC must "concentrate during this period on achieving and ensuring security and increasing co-ordination in the fields of security, military and defence by adopting a unified Gulf security structure to protect the council's states," Khalifa told the newspaper.
The GCC leaders at their Monday meeting are expected to discuss a Saudi proposal to develop their six-nation council into a union, possibly starting with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
The exact nature of this union, first floated by Saudi King Abdullah in December, remains unclear but Bahrain's state minister for information, Samira Rajab, said it could follow the "European Union model."
Sheikh Ali Salman, the leader of Bahrain's main Shiite opposition formation, Al-Wefaq, has criticised the project which he said must first be subjected to a referendum that should take place in all GCC states.
"Bahrain gained its independence (in 1971) following a referendum" overseen by the United Nations, said Salman in a speech on Sunday.
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