Bahrain's foreign minister has called for the creation of a regional grouping of Arab states with Israel, as well as Iran and Turkey, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. "Israel, Iran, Turkey and Arab states should sit together in one organisation," Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad al-Khalifa was quoted in the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat as saying.
"Aren't we all members of a global organisation called the United Nations? Why not (come together) on a regional basis? This is the only way to solve our problems. There's no other way to solve them, now or in 200 years."
Al-Hayat, which interviewed the Bahraini chief diplomat in New York, said he had proposed the establishment of a regional bloc in a speech to the UN General Assembly.
"Why don't we sit together even if we disagree, even if we don't recognise each other? Let's be in a single organisation in order to overcome the difficult stage through which the Middle East is passing -- a stage that remains hostage to the past," Sheikh Khaled told the newspaper.
© 2008 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
