Almotamar.net, Saba - Prime Minister Ali Mujawar addressed on Thursday activities of the Ninth Ministerial Meeting of Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC).

Mujawar, who expressed happiness to open this conference, argued participants to come out with treaty of trade between member states in the association and a treaty to establish a council for cooperation in field of marine transport and establishing a center for technological exchange between the countries in the region as well as a center for studying fishery wealth.


"Delaying or slowdown in carrying out cooperation projects and partnership will cost you precious time to enhance cooperation and partnership between them," he said, calling to make Sana'a meeting an embarking point for joint work and real activation to the organization.

"This meeting� comes in a time during which the world is witnessing financial crises sweeping global economies and its effects reach every country. What is pleasing is that effects of the crisis are much lesser than on big industrial countries," Mujawar indicated.

He touched upon challenges facing states of the association because of piracy comes from Somali coasts and threatens marine lines in western Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and the south of the Red Sea. It led to presence of warships from European and Asian countries to face piracy and protect trade ships.

He talked about Yemen's efforts, despite of its limited potentials, in protecting marine lines and effort when thwarted a number of piracy's endeavors. He called on the international community and member states of the IOR-ARC to support Yemen for build its coast guard and contribute to costs of receiving refugees via choosing Yemen as regional center for coordination efforts of combating piracy.

For his part, Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi reviewed role played by Ports of Mocha and Mukalla in receiving and exporting goods to different countries in the world. This encouraged Yemen to improve its ports overlooking the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.


"Yemen gives Aden Gulf and the Red Sea�s' security and stability special concern in its strategies to ensure easiness of marine trade activity," said al-Qirbi. " This imposed on Yemen to carry on shoulders responsibility to protect international maritime in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, combating piracy and working on restoring Somali peace and stability as the real solution to piracy."

He added that piracy and its effects on international trade require integration of regional and international efforts to eradicating it and coordination with regional countries not to affect fishermen and legal maritime.

He indicated that Yemen presented a project to establish a center to combat piracy in Aden, Mukalla and Hudeidah in purpose of coordinating efforts of combating piracy and directing information to ships could face pirates, affirming that Yemen depends on support of regional countries in this purpose.

For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the outgoing chairman of the association's ministerial council talked about strategic locations of countries overlooking the Indian Ocean, promotion of economic and cultural cooperation and protecting the wealth of the Indian Ocean and utilizing it well.

He also reviewed his country's efforts while presiding over the association's eighth ministerial meeting last year. He also tackled about the efforts of the association for the past three years.

Then Iranian Foreign Minister handed over the presidency of the Ninth Ministerial Meeting of IOR-ARC to Yemen and chaired by Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi.

Al-Qirbi started the secession by standing for a minute as attribution to the soul of the head of the delegation of Sri Lanka who was found dead in the hotel he was living in during his participation in the conference.

Then al-Qirbi listened to comments and recommendations of the participating delegations.