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DEAD SEA, JORDAN: Top diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan concluded talks on Thursday aimed at coordinating policy on the multiple conflicts gripping the region.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said the ministers “exchanged views on regional issues and ways of cooperation to overcome regional crises,” without providing additional details. 

The meeting at the King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Center on the Dead Sea also covered the goal of achieving security and stability in the interest of Arab benefit.” 

The six-hour talks were “positive, constructive, and allowed a wide dialogue with an open agenda on the developments in the region and ways to face common challenges and enhance cooperation and coordination to serve Arab issues and interests,” Safadi said.

He described the meetings as a “consultation between brothers and friends.”

The talks were attended by Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir, along with foreign ministers from the other countries, Saudi Press Agency reported.

The talks came just two weeks before a planned US-Polish conference on the Middle East.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the conference will look at “making sure Iran is not a destabilizing influence”, although a senior US official has insisted it is “not an anti-Iran meeting.”

The Dead Sea meeting also came amid debate over the return of Syria to the Arab League, which suspended Damascus’s membership in November 2011 as President Bashar Al-Assad has emerged victorious from nearly eight years of deadly conflict.

Several Arab states, including Lebanon and Tunisia, have called for Syria’s return.

In December, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir made the first visit to Damascus by an Arab leader since 2011, and the UAE reopened its embassy.

*With AFP