MUSCAT, Oman, (Islamweb & News Agencies) Leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) took a major step toward economic union and signed an agreement based on joint customs tariffs in 2003 and a single market and currency by 2010.(Read photo caption below)

The GCC states also decided to increase their joint defence force to 20,000 men and strongly condemned terrorism in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
One after the other the rulers or representatives of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates signed the document in the televised closing session of a two-day summit in the Omani capital.
The customs accord, unifying tariffs at five percent, will come into force on January 1, 2003, according to a final statement from the group's annual year-end meeting.
The new currency will be launched by January 1, 2010 "at the latest," said GCC Secretary General Jamil al-Hujailan.
The Gulf Arab leaders also agreed to set up a supreme defense council and to boost their joint forces to 20,000 men.
They gave no details about that decision, but a delegate told AFP the council would oversee the implementation of a joint defense pact, signed by the leaders a year ago, which commits the GCC countries to defend any member state against an outside threat.
The council will meet once a year at the level of defense ministers and can be convened in case of emergency for joint sessions with foreign ministers, he said.
The body, backed by a high committee made up of chiefs of staff and military technical committees, will be chaired by the country holding the rotating presidency of the GCC.
The GCC has since 1986 had a joint defense force of 5,000 men stationed at Hafr al-Batin in northeastern Saudi Arabia, near the border with Iraq. Plans have long been made to bolster the number of men.
"This force will be developed into a mechanized infantry brigade of 20,000 men," a senior GCC military official said.
Hafr al-Batin will house 6,500 men of the force called Peninsula Shield. "This symbolic force will have its own quarters in early 2003," the official said.
Construction was already underway at Hafr al-Batin, paid for by Riyadh.
"The remainder of the troops will be deployed in member countries with their own armies and can be called upon at any moment," the delegate said.
The GCC leaders offered total support to the US-led international coalition and the "anti-terror war" launched by Washington which has toppled Afghanistan's Taliban regime and is pursuing Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network suspected in the hijacked jetliner attacks on New York and Washington.
They again condemned the attacks and "expressed total readiness to cooperate with the international community."
But they simultaneously called for an international summit "to define the international basis for the struggle against terrorism" and urged the world "not to hold Islam responsible" for the attacks on the United States.
The Gulf leaders also offered to allow Yemen to join some GCC agencies in a first step to full membership of the group.
Their statement said Yemen would be allowed to join the Gulf council of health ministers, the regional education bureau and the council of labor and social affairs ministers.
The Gulf leaders called on Iraq and the United Nations to resume their dialogue in order to achieve a lifting of the embargo slapped on Baghdad in 1990 for invading Kuwait.
The six-nation alliance strongly rejected Iran's occupation of three small but strategic Gulf islands, saying "the invalid claims and measures taken by Iran (to continue) the occupation of the islands" would "not change in any way the United Arab Emirates' rights over these islands."
The Gulf leaders also blamed Israel for the escalation of violence with the Palestinians and voiced full support for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
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PHOTO CAPTION:
Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of Qatar, center, and members of his delegation take part in the closing ceremony of the two-day Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit at Al Bustan Palace in Muscat, Oman Monday Dec. 31, 2001. Leaders of the six-nation GCC agreed to set up a joint defense council and boost their combined forces fourfold to 20,000 men, GCC delegates said Monday. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)