Saudi newspapers hail call of Saudi Monarch for single entity

The call of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud for the GCC states to merge into a single entity was highlighted in the front pages of the Saudi newspapers, which believed that the call meets the aspirations of the Gulf citizens. "Al-Eqtisadiyah" newspaper highlighted King Abdullah's call in a front pgae headline titled "King meets the aspirations of the Gulf .. Union into a single entity" as a comment on the King's call which he launched yesterday at the opening of the 32nd GCC summit here. The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques had called on the GCC countries during his opening speech yesterday to bypass the stage of cooperation and merge into a single entity to achieve good and drive out evil. For its part, "Asharq Al-Awsat" newspaper highlighted King Abdullah's call for a single entity in a front-pgae editorial entitled "King calls on GCC leaders to go beyond the stage of cooperation to a single entity", and focused on the King's worries that the "Gulf states are being targeted in their security and stability." The "Al-Watan" newspaper for its part also shed light on the King's call for a single unity among the GCC peoples, a call that was praised by a number of commentators and academic figures. The paper quoted Chairman of the Gulf Research Center Abdul Aziz bin Saqr as saying that the King wanted the GCC states to come out of the bottleneck and overcome all outstanding issues and move on to the stage of actual integration. Saqr added that this shift in the march of the GCC joint action would be fruitful for the GCC citizens before their governments and the GCC states would positively be responsive to such call. The newspaper also quoted Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at King Saud University Dr. Saleh al-Khathlan as saying that the idea of turning to a Gulf Union implicitly carries a Saudi initiative towards the implementation of the decisions taken with respect to a particular economic unity.