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When US and Iranian negotiators meet in Oman on Saturday they will be just the latest to turn to crisis mediation in the Gulf Arab states, whose wealthy rulers are increasingly seeking out the role.Oman is a long-established venue for Iranian talks, while promoting peace is a pillar of Qatar’s foreign policy and even enshrined in its constitution.More recently Saudi Arabia has caught on, hosting Ukraine ceasefire talks including the latest round in a lavish hotel in Riyadh last month.The United Arab Emirates has also got in on the act, facilitating Russia-Ukraine prisoner exchanges and hand-delivering a letter from US President Donald Trump to Tehran that paved the way for Saturday’s talks.The Gulf monarchies are convenient facilitators as they often refuse to take sides in conflicts and are careful to maintain relations with a wide array of countries.They benefit from the prestige and diplomatic leverage of hosting talks, while also helping protect themselves by easing regional volatility.In the case of Iran, which sits on the other side of the Gulf, there is a clear peace dividend for the Arab states which house a number of US military bases.”In terms of middle powers, they are just in a really unique position in having such a close relationship to the US and being very trusted by the US but also having relationships with a variety of US and Western rivals,” said Anna Jacobs of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.- ‘New heavyweight actor’ -Oman has always stayed on good terms with its neighbour Iran, facilitating for years discreet contacts with the US, which has not had diplomatic relations with Tehran since 1979.The sultanate was the first Gulf country to “fully engage in world diplomacy”, said Jean-Paul Ghoneim of the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs.”Then came the Emiratis, the Qataris, and now there is a new heavyweight actor: Saudi Arabia,” he said.Qatar has been a key mediator in more than a year of talks to end the Gaza war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has a political office in Doha.Qatar has also been an intermediary for Iran and the Taliban government in Afghanistan, among others.In organising such talks, often cloistered in luxury hotels, Gulf states are first and foremost seeking to protect their own interests.Tensions in the Middle East “would put the region squarely in the crosshairs of conflict and jeopardise their reputations as safe places to live, work, and do business,” said Kristian Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at Rice University in Houston, Texas.In Saudi Arabia’s case, regional instability would “put at risk the giga-projects that lie at the heart of Vision 2030″, the oil-dependent kingdom’s giant economic diversification plan, he added.Beyond the Middle East, Qatar recently hosted meetings between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, and brought together DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Doha.In 2022, Qatar brokered an agreement between Chad’s military government and dozens of opposition groups to hold peace talks, after five months of mediation efforts.”Qatar’s record in mediation has turned Doha into a hub with institutionalised expertise that extra-regional actors are now actively turning to,” said Ulrichsen.- ‘They want to be players’ – While Qatar and Oman have long-standing mediation traditions, especially in regional affairs, the role of Gulf states as intermediaries in the Ukraine-Russia war took the world by surprise.Saudi Arabia’s hosting of indirect talks between Moscow and Kyiv under US auspices, as well as the first Russian-American talks since 2022, highlights how conflict mediation has shifted away from Europe, Ulrichsen said.”The sight of a Gulf state hosting dialogue to end a major European war is testament to the region’s geopolitical weight in a far more multipolar and less Western-centric world,” he said.Yet Riyadh’s role in those talks was limited, said James Dorsey, an honorary fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute.The Americans and Russians simply “needed a neutral ground to meet”, he said.”Both the Americans and the Russians wanted to give that to the Saudis on a silver platter,” he said, offering the kingdom “prestige” on the world stage.”Certainly for the smaller states, but also for Saudi Arabia, it’s soft power,” he said.”They want to be players. And they don’t want to be just regional players,” he added.

Washington and Tehran waged a war of words Thursday ahead of key talks in Oman after US President Donald Trump said military action was “absolutely” possible if the talks fail.A senior adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Iran could expel UN nuclear watchdog inspectors over “threats” ahead of Saturday’s talks.Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani’s comments came after US Trump Wednesday failed to rule out military action against Iran in the event the planned talks fail to produce a deal.”The continuation of external threats and Iran being in a state of military attack may lead to deterrent measures, including expulsion of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and cessation of cooperation,” Shamkhani said on X.”Transfer of enriched materials to secure locations may also be considered,” he added, referring to the country’s uranium enrichment.In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce warned Iran against making a misstep.”The threat of that kind of action, of course, is inconsistent with Iran’s claims of a peaceful nuclear programme,” she told reporters.”Also, expelling IAEA inspectors from Iran would be an escalation and a miscalculation on Iran’s part.”Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is due to meet US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in the Gulf sultanate on Saturday for the talks that Washington has presented as the last chance for a peaceful resolution of Western concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme.Iran has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced hope Thursday that the US-Iran nuclear talks in Oman this weekend could lead to “peace”.”We hope that will lead to peace,” Rubio told a meeting of Trump’s cabinet. “We’re hopeful about that.”- New sanctions -Last month, Trump sent a letter to Khamenei, who has the final say in matters of state in Iran, calling for direct negotiations but warning of military action if the diplomacy fails.”If necessary, absolutely,” Trump told reporters Wednesday when asked if military action was an option.”If it requires military, we’re going to have military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that, be the leader of that,” Trump said.On Wednesday, the United States announced new sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear programme ahead of the talks between the longtime adversaries.In a mainly symbolic move, the US Treasury Department said it was imposing sanctions under additional authorities on five entities including the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran and one individual.On Thursday, the US State Department said it was imposing sanctions on Iran’s oil network under Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” against the country.Washington already enforces sweeping sanctions on Iran, particularly its nuclear programme whose scientists have also been the target of an assassination campaign attributed to Israel.Iran maintains that it is against direct negotiations with its arch-enemy the United States, but has left the door open for indirect talks.In 2015, Iran reached a landmark nuclear deal with major powers that gave it relief from international sanctions in return for restrictions on its nuclear activities monitored by UN inspectors.But in 2018, during Trump’s first term in office, the United States withdrew from the agreement and reinstated biting sanctions on Iran.A year later, Iran began rolling back on its commitments under the agreement and accelerated its nuclear programme.burs-srm/kir

Wall Street stocks resumed their free fall Thursday while the dollar stumbled as persistent concerns about the economic fallout from President Donald Trump’s trade wars put a fast end to the prior session’s surge.Major US indices spent the entire day in the red, disappointing traders who had been hoping to extend Wednesday’s rally following Trump’s …

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President Donald Trump claimed victory over Europe in the US tariffs war but acknowledged a “cost” to his surging trade offensive against superpower rival China as markets plunged again Thursday.Trump sought a victory lap at a White House cabinet meeting, saying the European Union had backed off from imposing retaliatory tariffs because of his tough …

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Hamas said on Thursday the announcement by President Emmanuel Macron that France could recognise a Palestinian state by June was an “important step”, after Israel’s foreign minister slammed the plan.”We welcome the statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron regarding his country’s readiness to recognise the State of Palestine,” Hamas official Mahmud Mardawi told AFP.He called the announcement “an important step that, if implemented, would constitute a positive shift in the international position towards the legitimate national rights of our Palestinian people”.On Wednesday, Macron said France plans to recognise a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June.”We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told France 5 television.Mardawi said France’s move was important because it is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council.”France, as a country with political weight and a permanent member of the (UN) Security Council, has the ability to influence the course of fair solutions and push towards ending the occupation and achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people,” Mardawi said.He said those aspirations were “freedom, independence and the establishment of their state on their land, with Jerusalem as its capital”.Gaza City resident Ibrahim Musa told AFP he “felt very relieved” when he heard the news.”We are a suffering people and we are still suffering, and we hope that the Western world will take positive steps to stop this war with all the strength it can,” he said.But for fellow Gaza City resident Salwa Al-Shandaghli, “this pressure is not enough”.”We need other countries and stronger backing… in order to exert greater pressure on the Israeli occupation,” she said.Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, who is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, told AFP France’s recognition of Palestinian statehood “would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two-state solution”. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar denounced Macron’s announcement as a “prize for terror and a boost for Hamas”.”These kind of actions will not bring peace, security and stability in our region closer — but the opposite: they only push them further away,” he said on X late on Wednesday.Nearly 150 countries recognise a Palestinian state.In May 2024, Ireland, Norway and Spain announced recognition, followed by Slovenia in June.Their moves were partly fuelled by anger at the high civilian death toll in Israel’s devastating offensive in Gaza which was triggered by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on southern Israel.