By Maha El Dahan and Tuvan Gumrukcu
DUBAI, Feb 3 – Regional power United Arab Emirates urged Iran and the United States on Tuesday to resolve a standoff that has led to mutual threats of air strikes when they resume talks this week, emphasizing that the Middle East does not need another war.
Iran and the United States will discuss Iran’s nuclear programme on Friday in Turkey, Iranian and U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump said that with big U.S. warships heading to Iran, “bad things” would probably happen if a deal could not be reached.
The UAE, a highly influential Gulf Arab power and close U.S. ally, said the region cannot afford another conflict.
“I think that the region has gone through various calamitous confrontations,” the UAE president’s adviser Anwar Gargash told a panel at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
“I don’t think we need another one, but I would like to see direct Iranian-American negotiations leading to understandings so that we don’t have these issues every other day.”
Iran should rebuild its relationship with Washington to reach a wider geo-strategic deal which could help Tehran repair its economy ravaged by U.S. sanctions, Gargash said.
IRAN FEARS US STRIKE MIGHT IMPERIL RULE, SOURCES SAY
Gulf Arab states are worried that Iran will carry out its threat to target U.S. bases on their territory should Trump attack the Islamic Republic again.
In June the United States struck Iranian nuclear targets, joining in at the close of a 12-day Israeli bombing campaign. Since then, Tehran has said its uranium enrichment work, which it says is for peaceful, not military purposes, has stopped.
Recent satellite imagery of two of the targeted sites, Isfahan and Natanz, appears to show new roofing over two previously destroyed buildings, according to the imagery provided by Planet Labs and reviewed by Reuters, which showed no other signs of rebuilding.
U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will meet in Istanbul in an effort to revive diplomacy over the long-running dispute about Iran’s nuclear programme and dispel fears of a new regional war. A regional diplomat said representatives from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt would also participate.
The U.S. naval buildup near Iran follows a violent crackdown against anti-government demonstrations last month.
Trump, who stopped short of carrying out threats to intervene, has since demanded Tehran make nuclear concessions and sent a flotilla to its coast. He said last week Iran was “seriously talking”, while Tehran’s top security official Ali Larijani said arrangements for negotiations were under way.
The priority of the talks in Istanbul is to avoid any conflict and de-escalate tensions between the two sides, a regional official told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that a group of regional powers were also invited.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some of the countries invited to the talks at the foreign ministers’ level included Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran’s leadership is increasingly worried a U.S. strike could break its grip on power by driving an already enraged public back onto the streets, according to six current and former officials.
In high-level meetings, officials told Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that public anger over last month’s crackdown – the bloodiest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution– has reached a point where fear is no longer a deterrent, four current officials briefed on the discussions said.
Iranian sources told Reuters last week that Trump had demanded three conditions for resumption of talks: Zero enrichment of uranium in Iran, limits on Tehran’s ballistic missile programme and ending its support for regional proxies.
Iran has long said all three demands are unacceptable infringements of its sovereignty, but two Iranian officials told Reuters its clerical rulers saw the ballistic missile programme, rather than uranium enrichment, as the bigger obstacle.
One Iranian official said: “Diplomacy is ongoing. For talks to resume, Iran says there should not be preconditions and that it is ready to show flexibility on uranium enrichment, including handing over 400 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU), accepting zero enrichment under a consortium arrangement as a solution.”
Tehran’s regional sway has been weakened by Israel’s attacks on its proxies – from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq – as well as by the ousting of Iran’s close ally, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
(Additional reporting by Nayera Abdallah, Maha El Dahan,Jana Choukeir, Federico Maccioni and Parisa Hafeezi; Writing by Michael Georgy, Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Comments