The annual year-end summit of the six Gulf Arab states is to open in Doha Saturday without most of the heads of state from the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) bloc, despite mounting prospects of a US-led war against Iraq. Only outgoing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) chairman Oman and host Qatar will be represented at head of state level during the two-day meeting, whose agenda will be topped by the Iraqi crisis, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an imminent GCC customs union.

The boycott is being led by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, whose country's uneasy relations with Qatar have been further strained by comments deemed offensive to the kingdom on Doha-based Al Jazeera, the satellite channel which has upset all the Gulf states with its no-holds barred debates.

The Saudi delegation, like those of Kuwait and Bahrain, will be led by Riyadh's chief diplomat, while the United Arab Emirates will be represented by Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashed al-Maktoum, who is both vice president and prime minister.

"Representation is a matter of sovereignty, up to each member state to decide," the GCC's Qatari secretary general, Abdul Rahman al-Attiya, told reporters on Thursday.

"The important thing is that they are all coming," said Attiya.

Foreign ministers of the six-nation alliance met behind closed doors at the Doha Sheraton and under the chairmanship of Qatari Foreign Minister, SH Hamad Ben Jassim Ben Jabor Al-Thani, Friday to finalize the agenda of the summit.

According to the Qatari daily Al-Raya, Kuwait will ask the summit to take "a unified position on the (December 7) speech by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein" in which he apologized to the Kuwaiti people over the 1990 invasion of their country, but accused the emirate's rulers of plotting with the United States against Baghdad.

The meeting is bound to be overshadowed by the possibility of a massive US strike against Iraq, which appears to have risen following Washington's charge on Thursday that Baghdad was in "material breach" of its UN disarmament obligations.

The United States has 65,000 troops deployed in the Gulf and its buildup for war shows no sign of abating.

The summit is due to examine the introduction on January 1 of a long-awaited customs union among the six states, but a senior GCC official said in remarks published Thursday that the bloc had decided to put off implementation of parts of the pact.

Assistant undersecretary for economic affairs Mohammad al-Mazroui said GCC finance ministers had agreed to delay the application of a number of steps for between one and three years.

"The ministers agreed that member states will continue to charge customs duty on goods bought from other states for a limited period," he told the Saudi-owned daily Asharq Al-Awsat, denying the delay of some points would hinder the launch of the union.

The alliance has a combined oil output of about 13 million barrels daily, and more than 50 percent of the world's proven crude reserves.

PHOTO CAPTION

Foreign ministers of the six-nation GCC alliance met behind closed doors at the Doha Sheraton and under the chairmanship of the Qatari Foreign Minister, SH Hamad Ben Jassim Ben Jabor Al-Thani, Friday, Dec 20, 2002, to finalize the agenda of the GCC summit due to convene in Doha Saturday, Dec 21, 2002. (al-Raya photo)