The first GCC meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi in May 1981. Pictured are Sheikh Zayed, Oman's Sultan Qaboos, Saudi Arabia's King Khalid and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed, Ruler of Dubai. Photo: Intercontinental Hotel Abu Dhabi
The first GCC meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi in May 1981. Pictured are Sheikh Zayed, Oman's Sultan Qaboos, Saudi Arabia's King Khalid and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed, Ruler of Dubai. Photo: Intercontinental Hotel Abu Dhabi
The first GCC meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi in May 1981. Pictured are Sheikh Zayed, Oman's Sultan Qaboos, Saudi Arabia's King Khalid and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed, Ruler of Dubai. P
One by one, the aircraft arrived, each carrying a head of state. Waiting at Abu Dhabi's international airport on that warm May afternoon about 42 years ago was another leader, the President of the United Arab Emirates.
Sheikh Zayed, the Founding Father, greeted them in turn – the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.
From what is now Al Bateen Airport, convoys sped to the city's newest and most luxurious hotel, the InterContinental. In the middle of the ballroom, a round table had been set, ringed with large leather chairs.
L-R: Sheikh Khalifa of Qatar, Kuwait Emir Sheikh Jaber, Oman's Sultan Qaboos, King Khalid of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Zayed of the UAE and Sheikh Isa of Bahrain, at the first GCC summit in Abu Dhabi, 1981. Photo: National Archives
It was there, at 7.55pm on Monday, May 25, 1981, that the charter was signed creating the Gulf Co-operation Council.
Sheikh Zayed opened that first 40-minute summit of the GCC. “What the Arab world expects of us is serious solidarity, co-operation and loyalty,” he told his fellow leaders.
It was a declaration of intent but also of identity. The new symbol of the GCC, hanging on the wall of the InterContinental ballroom, showed the six nations united together in a map without boundaries.
Beyond those borders there was much disunity. Iraq and Iran were locked in a bloody war that would last for eight years. Within six months of the summit, Egypt's Anwar Sadat would be assassinated by army officers linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Two years earlier, other extremists had seized the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Iranian Revolution swept aside the monarchy of the Shah and replaced him with supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Despite the region's vast oil and gas wealth, the GCC six were no match for the military power of the US and the Soviet Union, both of which saw the Gulf as strategically important to their own interests.
As the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai Al Aam reported: “The Gulf leaders know we live in a wild world, one in which oil attracts sharks in the manner of blood.”
Sheikh Zayed put the position of the GCC in more detail in an interview with Al Khaleej newspaper a few days later.
“We are entitled to our lands and properties and we shall combine all our efforts to protect our countries, our peoples and our security,” he said.
“We don’t want any country, big or small, interfering in our affairs or conducting their conflicts on our soil, air and seas.”
Sheikh Zayed at a press conference following the first GCC summit in Abu Dhabi, 1981. Photo: National Archives
Even as Ruler of Abu Dhabi in the 1960s, Sheikh Zayed had been aware of how vulnerable his country was. Negotiations that would eventually create the UAE in 1971 originally included Bahrain and Qatar in the federation, until both countries decided to seek independence.
The seven emirates of the UAE were a powerful message that unity is strength. The creation of the GCC would take this a step further.
The first moves towards a union of Gulf states began in 1977, with an approach to Sheikh Zayed by Sheikh Jaber, then Ruler of Kuwait. Together, the two countries shared the idea with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.
All six leaders who sat together in the ballroom of the InterContinental are now gone, the last being Sultan Qaboos of Oman, who died in 2020.
The organisation they created continues, with the 43rd summit held in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in December.
From left, Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Nawaf, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim, Oman's Deputy Prime Minister Fahd bin Mahmoud, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, UAE Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, and Dr Nayef Al Hajraf, Secretary General of the GCC, before the opening session of the 41st GCC summit in the Saudi city of Al Ula. AFP
Since 1981, the GCC has endured testing times, with the Iran-Iraq War followed two years later by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, a GCC member. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia participated in its liberation.
The business of the GCC was dominated by security concerns in its first two decades. Peninsula Shield, a joint military force to deter aggression against member states, was created in 1984.
The council has increasingly moved forward in economic areas, including projects to link electricity grids and water supplies, and a Gulf railway.
Citizens of the six member countries also benefit from a single market that gives common access rights for employment, health care, retirement benefits, property ownership and education.
At a summit in 2021, Secretary General Nayef Al Hajraf, from Saudi Arabia, underlined the organisation's economic power – a GDP of $1.6 trillion, and the sixth-largest export market in the world at about $610 billion annually.
The most significant achievement of the GCC, though, may be that it gave a common voice to a corner of the Arab world once considered to be on the margin of the Middle East.
As Abdullah Bishara, the Kuwaiti diplomat and first GCC Secretary General, put it: “We strengthened the identity, the Gulf identity. There are now ‘Gulf’ people.
“We don’t make sweeping statements about being ‘Arabs’. There are Egyptians, there are Sudanese and there is the Gulf.”
Who were the leaders at the first GCC summit?
The first GCC summit – in pictures
Sheikh Zayed welcomes the heads of state at the first GCC summit on May 25, 1981. The meeting was held at the InterContinental hotel in Abu Dhabi. Photos by Khushnum Bhandari / The National and courtesy InterContinental
Sheikh Zayed, left, walks through the hallway of the InterContinental hotel in Abu Dhabi with Khalid bin Abdulaziz, the King of Saudi Arabia.
The six heads of state of the Gulf countries sit around a handcrafted table in the Dar El Istiqbal ballroom during the first GCC summit in 1981.
Despite undergoing a full renovation in 2007, the Dar El Istiqbal ballroom at the InterContinental hotel in Abu Dhabi remains almost the same today as it did 40 years ago.
Heads of GCC states held formal and informal discussions at the two-day event to strengthen the bilateral relations among six countries.
Jiraporn Wattanasuntranon, 62, from Thailand, started working at the hotel in 1980 and remembers the buzz around hosting the first GCC Summit.
Framed photographs from the first GCC summit hung on the walls of the hotel lobby offer a snapshot of the historic meeting.
A table being flown into the hotel for the first GCC summit in 1981. This is the table where the six heads of state signed a document to form the GCC.
Over the past four decades, the InterContinental hotel in Abu Dhabi has hosted five GCC summits - 1981, 1986, 1992, 1998 and 2004.
Sheikh Zayed and Sultan Qaboos of Oman during a meeting at the GCC summit in 1981.
From left, Wael Sami, director of sales and marketing, Jiraporn Wattanasuntranon, pay master and Marwan Naser, chief security manager at the InterContinental hotel in Abu Dhabi.
Marwan Naser, chief security manager at the InterContinental hotel was present during the second GCC summit hosted by the UAE in 1986.
Marwan Naser shows a throwback image of himself from the 1986 GCC summit in the Dar El Istiqbal ballroom at the InterContinental hotel.
The banquet corridor leading to the Liwa Majlis and Dar El Istiqbal ballroom at the hotel.
Sheikh Zayed and the heads of state walk through a corridor of the hotel.
The Liwa Majlis hosted several side meetings during the first GCC summit in 1981.
Sheikh Zayed, who addresses GCC heads of state as his brothers, said the meeting would pave the way for 'security, development and solidarity' in the region.
*A version of this story first appeared in The National in 2021, to mark the 40th anniversary of the GCC
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Emergency phone numbers in the UAE
Estijaba – 8001717 – number to call to request coronavirus testing
Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111
Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre
Emirates airline – 600555555
Etihad Airways – 600555666
Ambulance – 998
Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries
How the bonus system works
The two riders are among several riders in the UAE to receive the top payment of £10,000 under the Thank You Fund of £16 million (Dh80m), which was announced in conjunction with Deliveroo's £8 billion (Dh40bn) stock market listing earlier this year.
The £10,000 (Dh50,000) payment is made to those riders who have completed the highest number of orders in each market.
There are also riders who will receive payments of £1,000 (Dh5,000) and £500 (Dh2,500).
All riders who have worked with Deliveroo for at least one year and completed 2,000 orders will receive £200 (Dh1,000), the company said when it announced the scheme.
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Friday (all kick-offs UAE time)
Hertha Berlin v Union Berlin (10.30pm)
Saturday
Freiburg v Werder Bremen (5.30pm)
Paderborn v Hoffenheim (5.30pm)
Wolfsburg v Borussia Dortmund (5.30pm)
Borussia Monchengladbach v Bayer Leverkusen (5.30pm)
Bayern Munich v Eintracht Frankfurt (5.30pm)
Sunday
Schalke v Augsburg (3.30pm)
Mainz v RB Leipzig (5.30pm)
Cologne v Fortuna Dusseldorf (8pm)
THREE POSSIBLE REPLACEMENTS
Khalfan Mubarak
The Al Jazira playmaker has for some time been tipped for stardom within UAE football, with Quique Sanchez Flores, his former manager at Al Ahli, once labelling him a “genius”. He was only 17. Now 23, Mubarak has developed into a crafty supplier of chances, evidenced by his seven assists in six league matches this season. Still to display his class at international level, though.
Rayan Yaslam
The Al Ain attacking midfielder has become a regular starter for his club in the past 15 months. Yaslam, 23, is a tidy and intelligent player, technically proficient with an eye for opening up defences. Developed while alongside Abdulrahman in the Al Ain first-team and has progressed well since manager Zoran Mamic’s arrival. However, made his UAE debut only last December.
Ismail Matar
The Al Wahda forward is revered by teammates and a key contributor to the squad. At 35, his best days are behind him, but Matar is incredibly experienced and an example to his colleagues. His ability to cope with tournament football is a concern, though, despite Matar beginning the season well. Not a like-for-like replacement, although the system could be adjusted to suit.
A new “core protection” for refugees moving from permanent to a more basic, temporary protection
Shortened leave to remain - refugees will receive 30 months instead of five years
A longer path to settlement with no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain
To encourage refugees to integrate the government will encourage them to out of the core protection route wherever possible.
Under core protection there will be no automatic right to family reunion
Refugees will have a reduced right to public funds
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area. Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife. Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”. He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale. Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
