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\n Fourteen countries have backed a Saudi proposal to establish a multinational \u201cMaritime Defense Alliance,\u201d aimed at protecting international shipping routes and global trade, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Ministry of Defense said in a statement Thursday.\n <\/p>\n
\n The countries are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia.\n <\/p>\n
\n The ministry said military chiefs and other representatives from 43 countries attended a meeting on the initiative, either in person or by video link. A European Union delegation also took part.\n <\/p>\n
\n Participants discussed attacks on commercial vessels, energy carriers and maritime infrastructure, along with the risks they pose to navigation, global supply chains and the international economy, according to the statement.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was agreed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would be the founding and leading country of the alliance, and host its main headquarters,\u201d the statement said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The proposed alliance is \u201can open international defensive initiative\u201d for countries that share its goals and principles, according to the statement, adding that it would seek to enhance maritime security and preserve \u201cthe freedom of navigation and global trade.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The 14 countries issued a joint statement supporting the project and welcoming the consensus reached on its founding arrangements, according to the ministry. Other participating countries also expressed support and were completing domestic approval procedures, it said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fourteen countries have backed a Saudi proposal to establish a multinational \u201cMaritime Defense Alliance,\u201d aimed at protecting international…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-794560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}