Jordan GCC membership talks to start next month

Jordan is expected to start talks with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) over its bid to join the organisation during the first half of Ramadan (August), the government said on Tuesday. Interviewed by The Jordan Times yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Judeh said that when the council welcomed Jordan’s bid to join the GCC in May, it announced they would invite Jordan’s foreign minister for further discussion on the sidelines of the meeting of GCC foreign ministers that will take place at the council’s headquarters in Riyadh. Judeh said: “Because this is a new thing as far as they are concerned, GCC members are in the process of doing their homework in terms of legislation and other issues and hopefully we will start our discussions in the first half of Ramadan where I will sit with six of my GCC colleagues and the secretary general and we will discuss the details of our bid towards full membership of the GCC.” “We realise that Jordan is not a Gulf country, but there are many commonalities between us and the GCC: common interests, the shared view of the challenges that we all face, the cooperation that is ongoing and historically has been so. All of these compel us all to find a way where we can all be under the same umbrella,” he added. The relationship will be mutually beneficial, Judeh said, noting that the Kingdom “has added value to put on the table and the Gulf has added value to offer”. Judeh’s talks with GCC peers, he said, will cover economic cooperation, Jordanian workforce in the Gulf, freedom of movement and visas, among others. “We already have a huge workforce in the Gulf countries estimated at around 500,000,” the minister noted.