OPV Middle East conference ends

Manama : A major conference,which brought together senior Navy and Coast Guard officers from around the world, came to a close yesterday.

Senior officers from a number of nations including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, USA, UK, Australia and Sri Lanka attended the 5th OPV Middle East conference, which was held from Monday to Wednesday. 

The event, which was officially supported by the Bahrain Defence Force and Royal Bahrain Naval Force, was held at Art Rotana Hotel in Amwaj. It was aimed to gather influential decision makers on maritime security in order to understand the ways in which they can work together and establish mechanisms to achieve greater maritime security in the region.

The conference was regarded as the most diverse and comprehensive summit of its kind in the region. Speakers from the Middle East as well as abroad addressed a number of pressing topics, with contributions from the US Navy, NATO, Royal Navy, Egyptian Navy, Australian Navy, French Navy, Spanish Navy and a host of other leading naval and maritime organisations.

The VIPs who attended the three-day event included Rear Admiral Shaikh Khalifa bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, Commander, Royal Bahrain Naval Force; Rear Admiral Mohammed Nasser Al Mohannadi, Commander, Qatar Emiri Naval Forces; Rear Admiral Fahad Abdulla Al Ghifaily, Commander Eastern Fleet, Royal Saudi Naval Forces; Major General Zuhair Al Nasrallah, Minister’s Undersecretary for Maritime Borders Security Affairs, Ministry of Interior – General Directorate for Civil Defence Kuwait; Rear Admiral Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed, Commander of Alexandria Naval Base, Egyptian Navy; Commodore Idrees Abdul Latif Idrees, Deputy Commander, Kuwait Naval Force; Commodore Ala’a Abdulla Seyadi, Commander, Bahrain Coast Guard.

The event also had delegates taking part in the event’s two-day exhibition of leading maritime companies including Leonardo-Finmeccanica, Austal, Lloyd’s Register, DNV GL, VesselVanguard, Atlas Telecom, Building Defence Systems, Strategic Marine, Lockheed Martin, VT Halter Marine, Navantia, Abu Dhabi Ship Building and IEC Telecom Group.