Kuwait City: A key regional summit of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has been cut short and will conclude yesterday instead of Wednesday, with all the delegates leaving Kuwait after a closed session, reports Al Jazeera.

The Kuwait summit takes place exactly six months after three of the member states severed diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar.

The move comes as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that it had formed a new economic and military partnership with Saudi Arabia separate from the GCC.

"Bahrain has decided to send a third level diplomat, the deputy prime minister and Saudi Arabia has sent Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir instead of a royal family member. It's clear the summit won’t yield any of the positive outcomes that we thought,” said Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from Kuwait City.

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have formed a new military and trade partnership separate from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), according to a statement issued by the UAE. The development yesterday comes amid heightened tensions within the GCC, a political and economic alliance of six countries that includes Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Oman.  According to the statement from the UAE foreign ministry, the new committee "is assigned to cooperate and coordinate between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in all military, political, economic, trade and cultural fields, as well as others, in the interest of the two countries".