Foreign ministers of six Gulf Arab states met in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on Saturday to work out the agenda of a coming summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) due to kick off on Sunday.

The closed-door ministerial meeting started Saturday afternoon in the Emirates Palace and is currently underway.

The meeting is to finalize the agenda of the annual year-end GCC summit which will group leaders from six Gulf Arab countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Oman and Bahrain.

Well-informed sources said economic integration of the Gulf Arab alliance will top the agenda of the upcoming two-day summit.

The bloc launched a customs union in 2003 and is trying to achieve a common market by 2007 and a single currency by 2010.

However, the sources said the summit is likely to look into a possible extension of the transit period of the customs union, due to expire by the end of this year, by two years to 2007, since member states have not completed requirements for the full implementation of the union.

The summit is also expected to present a unified stance of the Gulf Arab states concerning the developments in Iraq, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and relations between Syria and Lebanon.

Leaders will also discuss precautionary measures against bird flu, which was detected in Kuwait in October.

The GCC, founded in 1981, is a regional political and economic alliance aimed at enhancing cooperation among its six member states.

Source: Xinhua