At least three members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have hinted they are likely to back a Saudi plan to transform the council into a Western-backed diplomatic and military union.

The London-based Al Hayat daily cited a senior GCC source who said Qatar and possibly Kuwait could join Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in announcing their intention to comprise the core of a new Gulf Union superstate.

The United Arab Emirates and Oman would join at a later stage, the source that the paper did not identify said, explaining that “the brothers have their particular situations” and adding that “all countries have agreed on the Gulf Union.”

“The union core announcement will mark the start of drawing up the details for the implementation of the union in the security, political, military and economic areas,” the source said.

The GCC countries have demonstrated a strong unity in their political and security positions on the events in Bahrain and the standoff between the UAE and Iran on the UAE islands, the source said.

“The bitter experiences in some of the GCC countries should be a strong motivation to join the union,” the source said.

In December, Saudi King Abdullah, host of the latest GCC summit, called for moving the council from the stage of cooperation to the stage of union.

The union, which would provide a regional bulwark for Western powers against Iran, would have centralized diplomatic and military arms while leaving domestic governance largely in the hands of its individual member states.

Bahrain has repeatedly said since December that it supports the call to unify and that it looked for its formal announcement in Manama by the end of the year when it hosts the next annual summit.

Reports that at least three members are leaning towards Abdullah’s plan came as leaders of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will meet for one day in the Saudi capital Riyadh to discuss the latest developments in the region.

An ad-hoc GCC committee created to guide the 31-year-old alliance towards union is also expected to deliver its first report.

Saudi Arabia – a key Western ally in the region at dagger-points with Tehran as they vie for hegemony over the Persian Gulf – has been extolling the merits of the union as a vital necessity to confront security threats and meet emerging political and economic challenges.

The six Sunni Arab monarchies of the GCC have charged that Shi’ite Persian Iran has sought to destabilize their regimes by provoking their indigenous Shi’ite communities to revolution during the recent Arab Spring Revolutions.

The call for union by Riyadh has been coupled with GCC moves to tighten relations with NATO, which plans to build a regional operations center in Kuwait City, and to expand the union to include all eight Sunni monarchies.

In addition to eyeing Morocco and Jordan for membership – with Amman already in integration talks with the GCC – the council has considered inviting Egypt, the world’s most popular Arab country, to join the union.

Hasan Khreishah, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, blasted the Western-backed Palestinian Authority on Saturday, holding it responsible for rampant corruption and human rights violations.

He specifically blasted the Fatah-led PA for human rights abuses against Palestinian journalists.

“Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, we have had 12 Palestinian governments,” Khreishah said in an interview with the London-based Al- Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.

“Each government consisted of at least 24 ministers. This means that we have had 228 ministers, in addition to advisers. All receive high salaries and luxurious vehicles.”

Noting that members and representatives of other leading Palestinian bodies were also receiving high salaries and other privileges, Khreishah disclosed that the chairman of the Palestinian Investment Fund was being paid $35,000 each month.

Established in 2003, the fund is an independent investment company which aims to strengthen the Palestinian economy through key strategic investments.

At present, the fund has approximately $800 million in assets.

Khreishah scoffed at the PA’s talk about a financial crisis and said that corruption was now more widespread than ever.

“In light of the financial expenses [of the PA leadership], the talk about a financial crisis is repugnant and baseless,” he charged. “This talk has become a sort of political statement.”

He revealed that PA ministers and top officials were wasting public funds by spending an average of five days a month abroad.

“We hear about the suffering and hunger of the poor and the difficulties facing the unemployed, farmers, villagers and civil servants,” Khreishah said. “At the same time, we hear about the luxurious life of senior and influential officials and the involvement of some in money laundering.”

Khreishah accused the Western-backed PA of trying to cover up for rampant corruption by establishing a number of anti-corruption commissions.

Corruption today is bigger than it was in the past, he added.

“In my opinion, we don’t need ministries because any director could manage them,” he said.

Khreishah called for canceling the privileges granted to the legislators, except for the salaries, because they are unable to carry out their duties.

Ordinary Palestinians, he added, were paying a heavy price for the ongoing dispute between Fatah and Hamas.

Palestinians are being arrested, fired from their jobs and subjected to repressive measures by both parties, he added.

“Journalists have become a target for anyone who wants to violate human rights,” Khreishah said. “Palestinians are being held hostages by the two parties.”

In response to the charges, Jamal Nazzal, a spokesman for Fatah, accused Khreishah of being affiliated with Hamas and urged him to stop using the title deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament.

Nazzal also accused Khreishah of “political opportunism.”

Turkish forces killed five Kurdish rebels on Tuesday near the town of Tatvan in northern Kurdistan’s Bitlis province.

The fighters killed were believed to be members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Ankara also announced on Tuesday that Turkish forces have detained 28 people in simultaneous raids across six provinces, mostly in occupied northern Kurdistan, in connection with probes into political movements promoting Kurdish national rights.

Turkish security officials said Tuesday that police conducted raids against Kurdistan Communities Union in Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, Istanbul, Eskisehir, Mus and Ankara.

The detainees include Fatma Izol, head of the Sanliurfa branch of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

Other targets of Tuesday’s manhunt included community leaders from the Kurdish Communities’ Union (KCK), which is seen by Ankara as the PKK’s political wing.

The PKK first took up arms to liberate northern Kurdistan from Turkish rule in 1984. Since then, over 45,000 people – mostly Kurds – have lost their lives in the conflict.

Turkey, the European Union and the United States all officially categorize the PKK as a terrorist organization.

In recent years, Washington has begun to play a more visibly active role in Turkey’s fight to suppress Kurdish resistance fighters.

Turkish forces hunting Kurdish resistance fighters were ambushed by guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Friday.

Three soldiers were killed in the ambush, which took place in Turkish-occupied northern Kurdistan.

The soldiers were killed when guerrillas opened fire on Turkish troops raiding suspected rebel hideouts in the mountainous Tunceli province, Turkish officials said.

A group of roughly 15-20 PKK fighters had been planning attacks on the Tunceli town center, the officials added.

Military helicopters ferried special forces teams to the area at dawn on Friday, but their operations were hindered by heavy fog and rain.

There was no immediate information on PKK casualties.

In separate clashes in Sirnak province further south, occupation forces killed two PKK fighters who had ambushed an armored police vehicle Thursday night, wounding a special forces chief and a police officer, officials said.

The Spring season generally sees an upsurge in violence between Turkish occupation forces and the PKK as guerrillas emerge from their winter shelters.

More than 45,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK first took up arms in 1984 to liberate northern Kurdistan from Turkish rule.

The United States supports Turkey’s occupation of northern Kurdistan and actively participates in efforts to destroy the PKK, which it officially lists as a terrorist organization.

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority on Sunday defended its decision to block websites that are critical of Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, denying allegations it was violating freedom of expression.

PA Attorney-General Ahmed al-Mughni claimed that the websites were blocked for breaking the law and following complaints from Palestinians.

“Some of the websites were blocked for training Palestinians how to manufacture bombs and use them,” Mughni claimed without providing evidence.

He said that when he ordered the websites to be blocked, he and the PA’s American-trained security forces were acting in accordance with the law “to maintain public security.”

The attorney-general has come under sharp criticism from many Palestinians for blocking eight websites that are affiliated with ousted Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan.

At the request of Abbas, Dahlan was expelled from Fatah several months ago.

PA security forces also raided Dahlan’s Ramallah residence in July 2011, and arrested a number of his aides.

The row between Abbas and Dahlan erupted after the latter accused the PA president and his two sons of financial corruption.

Mughni has also been attacked for ordering the arrest of Palestinian journalists, bloggers and cartoonists who criticize Abbas.

Jamal Abu Rihan, a Palestinian activist who recently established a Facebook group calling for an end to PA corruption, has also been arrested on orders of the attorney-general.

Last week, the PA communications minister, Mashhour Abu Daka, resigned in protest against the decision to block the websites.

Abu Daka blamed the attorney-general for the crackdown, saying the closure of the websites was illegal.

In response, the attorney-general launched a scathing attack on Abu Daka and described his decision to quit as “ministerial outbidding.”

“The timing of the resignation is unjustified,” Mughni claimed, noting that the entire cabinet had resigned back in February 2011.

“Any minister or official who wants to resign should do so quietly,” the attorney- general said. “They should not base their decision on illusions, rumors and fabrications.”

A Total of 57% of Palestinians expressed that they do not trust any political faction, according to a public opinion poll published by the Palestinian Authority’s WAFA news agency on Sunday.

The poll results showed that 33% trust the Western-backed Fatah movement, 7% trust Hamas and 3% trust various other factions.

The poll, with a 3.5% error margin, was conducted by the Near East Consulting on a sample of 840 Palestinians distributed in all major Palestinian population centers, including Jerusalem and the Hamas-controlled Gaza region.

Results demonstrated that while 59% of Palestinians support a peace agreement with Israel, 44% call on Hamas to commit to its anti-Israel position.

Around 36% believed that the Doha Agreement between Fatah and Hamas will help speed up the process of reaching an agreement with Israel, 35% argued that it sets an obstacle for an agreement and 29% stated that it will have no effect.

According to the results, 43% of Palestinians believe that neither Fatah nor Hamas work for the greater interest of their people.

As for the delay in implementing the Doha Agreement, 52% said that both Fatah and Hamas are responsible for the failure to unify.

While Fatah is widely regarded by Palestinians as a puppet for American and European interets in the region, Hamas is viewed as oppressive on matters of religion and uncomfortably close with the Islamic regime in Iran.

Erdogan stressed, however, that ending the military operations before the resistance group’s disarmament is out of question.

Turkey frequently launches American-backed military operations against the PKK in Turkish-occupied northern Kurdistan as well as in the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq.

The Turkish prime minister’s comments came on the same day the President of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Massoud Barzani, had made similar remarks in a news conference while visiting Ankara.

He said the time of arms is over and called on the PKK to pursue peaceful methods to achieve Kurdish national goals.

Barzani stressed that he will not let PKK prevail over the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.

Barzani, during his two-day visit to Turkey that ended on Friday, held talks with Erdogan and other top Turkish officials including President Abdullah Gul.

The PKK issue was reportedly top on the agenda of the talks.

Some observers believe that Barzani’s call on the PKK to lay down arms is a strong message to the guerrilla fighters and could be indicative of closer security cooperation between the Kurdish Regional Government and Turkey.

The PKK mainly uses northern Iraq to organize its members for armed attacks and Turkey has repeatedly launched airstrikes on the region, which sometimes triggered condemnation by the KRG.

Turkey has repeatedly called on the KRG to take concrete measures to confront Kurdish guerrillas, which has so far refused to turn its own security forces against the PKK.

It remains to be seen if Barzani’s government will take any concrete measure to convince the PKK to stop its decades-long armed struggle to free northern Kurdistan from Turkish rule.

The PKK launched its armed struggle in 1984 and is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority closed down the offices of a human rights group over the weekend that criticized senior Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed, a close associated of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

PA Interior Minister Said Abu Ali, who signed the closure order, said that the work of the Palestinian Human Rights Foundation monitor was “not consistent” with the interests of the Palestinians.

The decision to shut down the foundation was taken following a recommendation by PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki.

Malki recommended that the offices of the human rights group be shut down “due to differences between its representatives in Lebanon and the Palestinian embassy in Beirut.”

Abdel Aziz Tarekji, the regional director of the organization, said that he did not receive a warning from the PA authorities before the closure.

“We were completely surprised by the decision to close down our offices,” Tarekji said, adding that he recently received threats from an aide to Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official and aide to Abbas.

According to Tarekji, the real reason for the closure of his offices are statements in which he criticized the PA official for not visiting refugee camps when he was recently in Lebanon.

Following the criticism, one of Ahmed’s cronies phoned him and threatened to shut down the group’s offices in Area A.

The human rights group is considering legal action against the PA for the closure, Tarekji said, adding that he was planning to send letters of protest to Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

The human rights foundation was founded in Lebanon in 2005 as a non-political, non-factional and non-governmental organization.

Two Kurdish rebels were reportedly killed by Turkish soldiers in occupied northern Kurdistan late Friday.

The clashes erupted late Friday between members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish occupation forces during a military operation staged in Yavrukoy area of Nusaybin town in Mardin province, said the statement issued by the Mardin governor’s office.

Turkish troops found the PKK guerrillas during their operation and immediately opened fire, said the statement.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, first took up arms in 1984 to liberate northern Kurdistan from Turkish rule.

PKK guerrillas, fighting to free northern Kurdistan from Turkish rule since 1984, have recently stepped up their operations against occupation forces.

The movement is officially listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

In addition to labeling the PKK as terrorists, Washington actively supports Ankara’s suppression of Kurdish resistance fighters.

In December of 2011, a United States drone controlled by American military personell in Nevada initiated an attack on young Kurdish smugglers that killed dozens of people.

Since 1984, more than 45,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in the conflict.

King Abdullah II has decided to revoke the Jordanian citizenship of Palestinian Authority and PLO officials, sources in Amman disclosed late Wednesday.

The sources said that the decision would also affect top leaders of the Western-backed PA, who would be granted temporary Jordanian passports to facilitate their travel.

The move coincides with a new electoral law in Jordan that seeks to limit Palestinian representation in parliament.

The latest anti-democratic assault on Palestinian rights in the Hashemite Kingdom is being spun by regime propagandists as an extension of Jordan’s 1988 decision to sever all legal and administrative ties with the territory it illegally occupied west of the Jordan River from 1949 until losing it to Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Jordan, a puppet kingdom with deep ties to the capitalist powers, officially relinquished its claim to the territory on orders from United States President George H.W. Bush.

In 1988, Bush demanded King Hussein abandon all claims to the territory and strip all Palestinians living there of the Jordanian national rights they previously enjoyed in order to create a vacum that soon led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the return of the Western-backed Fatah movement from Tunisia to lead it.

The late King Hussein then justified the move by arguing that it was intended to help the Palestinians establish their own independent state in territory controlled by Israel.

Abdullah’s regime is now claiming the decision to strip Palestinians of their  Jordanian citizenship is aimed at “preserving the Palestinians’ national identity and paving the way for their return to Palestine,” a statement that has spread fear among Jordan’s majority Palestinian population.

It’s not known at this stage if PA President Mahmoud Abbas would be stripped of his Jordanian citizenship, sources told the Saudi newspaper Al-Madina.

Jordan’s Interior Minister Mohammed al-Raud is expected to visit Ramallah to inform the PA leadership of the decision, the sources added.

In recent years, the Hashemite Kingdom has stripped thousands of Palestinians of their Jordanian citizenship in efforts to prevent the majority population from democratically gaining control of the country.

The Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm said the Jordanian interior minister would be accompanied on his visit to Ramallah by senior officials of his ministry and top security officers.

The paper quoted government officials in Amman as saying that the decision to revoke the Jordanian citizenship would affect some 1.6 million Palestinians in the Hashemite Kingdom.

The Jordanian delegation are also expected to discuss the extradition of Palestinians wanted by the PA for various crimes, primarily financial corruption, the paper reported.

A PA official in Ramallah confirmed that the Jordanian minister was planning on visiting the city, saying the visit is scheduled to take place on Saturday.

In a related development, Jordanian members of parliament criticized a new electoral law which they say is aimed at limiting representation of Palestinians in parliament.

Khalil Atiyeh, a Jordanian lawmaker, pointed out that the controversial law “ignores half of the Jordanian people” – a reference to the Palestinian.

Atiyeh told the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper that under the new law, the city of Russeifa near Amman would have only two seats in parliament although its population is estimated at approximately 700,000. Russeifa is known for having a large Palestinian population.

Experts said that the new law would reduce Palestinian representation in parliament to less than eight percent.

The law has also enraged Jordan’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood organization, whose leaders threatened Wednesday to call for a boycott of parliamentary elections slated later this year.

The organization complained that the new election law did not guarantee a proportional representation system and favors regime loyalists.

Jordanian Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh said that the new law was now in the hands of the parliament and that his government would defend the law despite sharp criticism.

“It is only a draft law and there might be some negative comments on it,” Khasawneh explained, adding that the Jordanian government “will have no fears” if Muslim Brotherhood representatives were to win the majority of seats in parliament.

The new law envisages a mixed electoral system featuring a majority vote in the districts and a closed proportional list at the national level while raising the number of seats to 138.