RIYADH, Dec 9: Saudi King Abdullah opened the annual summit of Gulf leaders on Saturday with a warning that the Arab world was on the brink of exploding because of conflicts in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Lebanon.

“Our Arab region is besieged by a number of dangers, as if it was a powder keg waiting for a spark to explode,” he told the rulers of the oil-rich monarchies gathered in Riyadh for a two-day meeting to the backdrop of mounting sectarian violence in Iraq.

The Palestinians were reeling from “a hostile and ugly occupation” by Israel while the international community watched their “bloody tragedy like a spectator,” King Abdullah said.

But “most dangerous for the (Palestinian) cause is the conflict among brethren,” he said in a reference to the differences between Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah faction and the Hamas movement that have blocked the formation of a unity government.

In Iraq “a brother is still killing his brother,” King Abdullah said of the tit-for-tat killings between the Sunni Arab former elite and the ruling Shia majority.King Abdullah also warned that Lebanon, which was rocked by civil war in 1975-1990, risked sliding into renewed civil strife as a result of the current standoff between pro- and anti-Syrian camps.

“In Lebanon, we see dark clouds threatening the unity of the homeland, which risks sliding again into... conflict among the sons of the same country,” he said. The heads of state of Gulf Cooperation Council members Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were present alongside the Saudi monarch, the first time in several years that all six rulers have attended the bloc's year-end summit.

Gulf Arab leaders are also concerned about Iran's growing role in Iraq and its standoff with the West over Tehran's nuclear programme, although GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman al-Attiyah said the GCC states do not feel threatened by the Islamic republic.

“The United States talks openly of the danger of Iranian military activity in the region, but our countries do not feel threatened by Tehran. Iranian officials assure us that their nuclear programme is peaceful,” Attiyah said.

In his opening speech, King Abdullah said there remained “outstanding issues” and “ambiguity surrounding some policies” in the Gulf.

He did not elaborate, but called for the GCC states to “stand as one” to tackle the problems confronting the Arab world.

A GCC source that the recommendations put forward to the heads of state by the bloc's ministerial committees focus on the potential fallout of the mayhem in Iraq.

The recommendations call for “instructing security agencies (of GCC states) to draft a joint plan of action” to deal with the risks arising from the situation in Iraq, including “population displacement, terrorist and criminal acts and the smuggling of weapons... and infiltration (of militants)” across common borders.—AFP