6 Arab States Near Regional Accord : Gulf: Foreign ministers make progress on a security plan. Cheney is due in Riyadh for a tour.

On the eve of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney’s first postwar tour of the Persian Gulf, six Arab nations moved toward agreement Sunday on a regional security plan that may one day include former enemy Iran.

Ending a daylong meeting, the foreign ministers of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and four other Gulf states also demanded that international economic sanctions against Iraq be maintained until Baghdad releases all prisoners of war and pays billions of dollars in reparations.

The foreign ministers, whose countries form the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, met in the ornate Bayan Palace here to discuss the region’s security in the wake of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the war that drove Iraqi troops from the oil-rich emirate.

Abdullah Bishara, secretary general of the GCC, said the Gulf states agreed to entrust regional security to an all-Arab force that includes Egypt and Syria. The force would be backed by American air and naval power.

The Arabs failed, however, to outline specifically how the security force would be deployed and commanded, who would pay for it and its size.

“We did not agree on how many soldiers but on what is feasible . . . to ensure uninterrupted tranquility” in the region, Bishara told reporters at the conclusion of the session.

Each of the six Gulf states--Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, in addition to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia--is expected to go over its proposals with Cheney, who is scheduled to arrive in the Saudi capital of Riyadh today.

Cheney is seeking agreement on the pre-positioning of military equipment in the Gulf, joint training exercises and an increased number of U.S. Navy warships and combat aircraft.

Bishara, in an interview before Sunday’s meeting, said the idea is to “build on the traditional American presence so as not to ruffle anybody’s feathers.”

The United States has said it does not wish to station ground forces in the region, despite a recent request from Kuwait that Western forces remain inside its borders indefinitely. The U.S. Central Command is expected to set up a headquarters in the Gulf, but the last American troops in southern Iraq are expected to pull out this week.

Bishara said the GCC has initiated “consultations” with Iran aimed at examining a future role for Tehran in regional security.

Seeking to end nearly a decade of isolation, Iran has been making overtures in recent weeks towards improving its relations with traditionally hostile neighbors and has insisted on inclusion in future security arrangements.

While Bishara declined to elaborate on the contacts with Iran, some GCC members seemed receptive.

“Iran is a friendly state with which we have historic relations,” said Qatar’s Foreign Minister Mubarak Ali al Khatir, who chaired the meeting. “It must have a security role in the security arrangements in the region.”

Fearful of Iran’s brand of Islamic revolution, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the most powerful of the Gulf states, supported Iraq’s 8-year war against Iran during the 1980s. But Iran remained neutral in the war to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and has campaigned to improve its relations in the Gulf.

Saudi officials remain wary of Iran, even though the two nations recently restored diplomatic ties after a 3-year hiatus. But Bishara said the GCC seems to be “on the threshold of a breakthrough” with Iran.