Against a backdrop of intensifying geopolitical polarization, countries in the Middle East and North Africa have attempted to insulate themselves by pursuing nascent dialogues, fostering economic cooperation and striving to avoid choosing sides between the great powers. What concrete steps can the region take to preserve its stability, and does a burgeoning innovation sector provide new avenues for cooperation? Discussing the topic at the World Economic Forum 2023 were the panelists:?Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Saudi Arabia,?Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iraq, Mr. Fouad Hussain,?Kaisa Olingren, Minister of Defense of Netherlands,?Minister Mohammed Al-Issas, Minister of Finance of Jordan and UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grunberg.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud said, "I think the Middle East is proving to be very much the meeting space of the world right now. We are in the intersection between East and West. We have clearly taken a decision to be a bridge for the East and the West and there is a lot of positive activity going on in the region even with some of the challenges that we continue to face. We have the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for instance is the world's fastest growing economy in this year but beyond that what we are doing with our partners among them for instance Iraq, Jordan here at the table but others in working on interconnectivity whether it's on electricity, whether it's building trade, investment etc."
He continued, "There is a true spirit of cooperation building in the region and I think that spirit of cooperation can be infectious and can also help to resolve some of the still existing differences and conflicts in the region and beyond.?So you know when we talk about our relationship for instance with some of our neighbors we say you know we always say we are focused on investing in our future in building our developmental path and building a pathway to sustainable prosperity not just for the people of Saudi Arabia but for the people of the region and that's why we want to work with everybody in the region in that direction."
Talking about the projects in Middle East, the Prince continued, "I'm most excited about Vision 2030 because that's our national vision our national reform program But you know in the context of the session one of The key elements of Vision 2030 is building the economy of the entire region, not just of Saudi Arabia. So you know when we talk about what we do with our neighbors it's all about investing it's all about building sustainable economic growth in our region first because that secures our own national security. It's in our national interest because if we have a secure stable region it allows us to focus also on our developmental path but if we are able to help our neighbors to build strong economies with strong markets."
He continued, "It will feed our economic prosperity so we are very very keenly focused on any number of things so we have with Iraq with Jordan with all of our neighbors in the region joint committees where we work on clearly defined goals. So one of the things that the leadership in the kingdom is very keen on is let us not work on slogans or on broad ideas. Let us work on specific targets let us identify projects and work through those projects and you know with every country in the region the kingdom has projects and also you can see so it's a Jordan and Iraq and Egypt work together on a trilateral cooperation mechanism and there are other examples. So there's a lot of activity in the region on focused on working together on building a resilient economic pathway for all of us now an important neighbor of course is Yemen and the war in some ways has gone into a lull there was a truce even if it has not been renewed."
Mr. Fouad Hussain said, "Iraq since 2003 it became a democratic system and it is an open society and of course being an open society and democratization it brings with it also some problems. There is a big interaction between the internal politics and external politics which is regional politics. To deal with the internal politics and sometimes conflicts within the Iraqi society Iraqi politics we were thinking how we can manage this so in the first place we were thinking about how we can manage the problems inside Iraq."
He continued, "So at the end after discussing and studying this situation we have seen that the link between the internal politics and regional politics and there is huge interaction so we started to manage also the internal politics outside the border and to deal with regional politics dealing with the regional politics there were many tensions it is true now is less but there was tension among various countries and Iraq because of the fact that Iraq has got good relationship almost with the all neighboring countries of Iraq so it was possible for Iraq to contact all these countries and at the same other end to bring them together and to have discussion."