Seef District: Mahmood Rafique, Editor: Daniel B. Shapiro, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, who addressed one of the plenary sessions at the IISS Manama Dialogue 2024, reiterated that both US and Bahrain’s relations based on mutual respect, identity of views on regional and international issues and co-operation in defense related areas remain a cornerstone of diplomatic relations.
Shaprio during a media briefing on the sidelines of the 20th edition of the IISS Manama Dialogue that he held very fruitful talks with top military brass and officials with a key focus on how to further strengthen the already excellent ties.
He said that the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United States of America’s signing of C-SIPA by two sides in September last year opened a new era of peace, stability, and prosperity for all likeminded nations in the region and beyond.
“I have joined by my colleagues from the US government during an audience with His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and Prime Minister and with the Lieutenant General His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, National Security Advisor and Royal Guard Commander, and with His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief of the Bahraini Defense Forces, and of course participated along in the signing of the expansion of the C- SIPA agreement as both Bahrain and the US formally extended an invitation to the UK to join making this agreement even robust arrangement.
He applauded Bahrain’s success for hosting IISS Manama Dialogue for the 20th consecutive year and assured US government support in all vital areas of common interest. “Security issues that are currently of concern to the regional and international security environment and fruitful discussions by the participating ministers, government delegates, officials, and diplomats during the Manama Dialogue.
Highlighting the salient features of the bilateral ties, Ambassador Shapiro termed very deep-rooted and said he has a meaningful visit to Bahrain which will help in advancing ties by speaking at one of sessions at the Manama Dialogue that personally I see as a great honour.
“With all this in line this tells us is that the United States and Bahrain have an extremely close and productive bilateral partnership, particularly in the defense sector, which is where we at the Department of Defense deal on day to day basis.
“Bahrain is an outstanding host to the US Fifth Fleet and the Combined Maritime Forces. Bahrain participates actively in a wide range of regional security initiatives, including to promote and protect freedom of navigation and international law on the high seas.
“Bahrain is also a key ally of US Central Command CENTCOM family that participates actively in variety of initiatives, whether it be our integrated air and missile defense initiatives, dialogues on range of regional partners, and on many occasions Bahrain cooperation is commendable. Both sides enjoy advanced security agreement, and C-SIPA will facilitate greater cooperation in areas of high technology sensitive as well information sharing agreement and is open to others to join and in fact has become a multilateral platform (by joining the UK) for cooperation and security and other matters.
“Both sides are committed to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea with Operation Prosperity Guardian. Bahrain has been one of the leading participants in that protective mission and has enabled many ships to pass freely by deterring piracy or ships coming under direct attack.
“We know we are going to need to do more not just by the United States, but it needs to be an international effort in which all countries participate in, particularly countries in this region.
“Some nations are more affected by this than the countries on the border of the Red Sea and countries of the Gulf, who are maritime nations and depend on freedom of navigation for their own economies, must step forward. Everybody needs to step forward and do more.
“There will be additional military actions that will need to be taken. There is no question about that but there will also need to be a range of economic sanctions and designations and isolation of those who the suppliers are. And so, there’s a wide range of efforts that need to be undertaken to convince this organization that is really conducting unprecedented terror against US Naval and maritime vessels in the Red Sea, that this is unacceptable and must stop.
The Kingdom of Bahrain, as I mentioned, is a key component of Operation Prosperity Guardian, he said, which has been a big part of our effort to protect shipping in the Red Sea. Bahrain is an active member of the Combined Maritime Forces, which has dealt with piracy and has dealt with other maritime threats. We together support the use of unmanned vessels that we use as monitor to provide greater maritime domain awareness to ensure that we identify threats further from the target so that we can address them. So, there’s a lot of technology development.
