Riyadh - SPA:
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud chaired the Cabinet session which was held at Al-Yamamah palace in Riyadh yesterday.
At the outset of the session, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques briefed the Cabinet on discussions and consultations that took place last week with a number of State leaders or their envoys on the latest regional and international developments, including the telephone call he received from President Barack Obama of the United States of America.
The Cabinet condemned the acts of aggression carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities against the Palestinian people, including the recent series of raids carried out by Israeli aircrafts on different areas of the Gaza Strip which led to the death and injury of dozens of Palestinian civilians, including children, women and elders, as well as continuation of Israel’s racial policy in the Arab territories of Palestine, the Syrian Golan and southern Lebanon, particularly violating the legitimate rights of access to natural resources including water.
The Cabinet welcomed the outcomes of the Afghanistan International conference held in Bonn, stressing the Kingdom's keenness on the unity and stability of Afghanistan, and expressing appreciation of the noble feelings towards the Kingdom expressed by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in his speech during the conference.
In a statement to Saudi Press Agency (SPA) following the session, Dr. Abdulaziz bin Mohieddin Khoja, Minister of Culture and Information, said the Cabinet reviewed the latest developments at the Arab territory, congratulating the brothers in the Republic of Yemen on forming the national reconciliation government based on GCC initiative.
The Cabinet expressed wishes that the meetings of Arab Foreign Ministers and the Ministerial Committee on the Syrian crisis scheduled next week in Cairo will put and end to bloodshed and restore security and stability in Syria.
Dr. Khoja said that the Cabinet discussed a number of events and activities that took place within the programs of the GCC Member States, including meetings of GCC interior ministers, municipality ministers held in Abu Dhabi and speakers of GCC Shura held in Jeddah.
The cabinet welcomed the GCC decision to establish a GCC police force and a permanent security committee for industrial security and protection of vital facilities.
Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi briefed the cabinet on the results of the Seventeenth Meeting of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Durban, South Africa, where the Kingdom (represented by the National Committee of the Clean Development Mechanism) won the Award of the best authority that presented a program for promoting the culture of the clean development mechanism.
The cabinet decided payment of compensation up to SR 500,000 to any military individual who suffers total disability or death while on duty.
The Cabinet approved the Regulations on Maritime territory of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The most prominent features include:
1-The rules and regulations of the Kingdom determine controls vessels entry to and leave of its territorial waters.
2- Vessels of all countries have the right of innocent passage through the territorial waters of the Kingdom. The passage shall be innocent if it does not harm the Kingdom's peace, regime or security.
3- All countries should acknowledge the rights of the Kingdom to its exclusive economic zone and comply with the laws of the Kingdom, the provisions of the convention and any other rules of the international law.
4- Application of the regulations does not prejudice any agreements signed previously between the Kingdom and its neighboring countries regarding maritime borders or exploitation of natural resources in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Arabian Gulf.