“We are hoping to bring this group together so that we can do more to make connections among them, to create efficiencies, to create mutually supporting programs. One of the issues that we have talked about is missile defense,” Nuland said during a briefing earlier this week.
“We have missile defense cooperation with some of these countries. Can we make it more efficient in a regional context?” Asked if missile defense was related to potential Iranian threats, Nuland did not answer specifically.
“On the GCC plus U.S. side, this is a security forum. It is primarily about peace and security in the neighborhood. It is about helping all of those countries work more closely together to combat the threats that they share, the threats that we work on with each of them,” she added.
“The United States has strong security relationships with all of the Gulf countries bilaterally,” Nuland noted. During Clinton's bilateral talks with Saudi leaders, “we will talk about the full relationship - economic security, the neighborhood, all those things,” she said.
Source: Kuwait News Agency - Kuna
