Iran flatly dismissed a call by Saudi Arabia for Gulf states to be consulted on any potential negotiations with the Islamic republic on its nuclear programme.

Iran dismisses Saudi's call for inclusion in nuclear talks

Saudi Arabia said on Saturday that a consultation with Gulf states was necessary if US nuclear agreement with Iran was to be revived. It warned that such an approach was the only path towards a sustainable agreement. Under the leadership of Joe Biden, there are signs that the US will return to the nuclear deal with Iran that was struck in 2015. Donald Trump had withdrawn from the agreement. &nbsp;

Biden has indicated that he will bring Iran's US-allied Arab neighbours, such as Saudi Arabia, which sees Iran as its arch-rival, into the process.

"Primarily what we expect is that we are fully consulted, that we and our other regional friends are fully consulted in what goes on vis a vis the negotiations with Iran," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told AFP.

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"The only way towards reaching an agreement that is sustainable is through such consultation," he said on the sidelines of a security conference in Bahrain's Manama.

"I think we've seen as a result of the after effects of the JCPOA that not involving the regional countries results in a build up of mistrust and neglect of the issues of real concern and of real effect on regional security."

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/strong-support-from-president-trump-saudi-arabia-says-final-agreement-with-qatar-within-reach-347759">'Strong support from President Trump': Saudi Arabia says final agreement with Qatar 'within reach'</a>

When he was asked whether the Biden administration was already in touch with Saudi Arabia to decide about revival of the deal, Prince Faisal said that there were no contacts as yet but that Saudi Arabia was reasy to engage with Biden when he takes office.

"We are confident that both an incoming Biden administration, but also our other partners, including the Europeans, have fully signed on to the need to have all the regional parties involved in a resolution," he said.

'JCPOA plus plus'

Germany said in recent days that a new, broader Iran nuclear accord must be reached to also rein in Tehran's ballistic missile programme, warning that the 2015 deal was no longer enough.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, talked of a "nuclear agreement plus", in language also deployed by the Saudi minister.

"I don't know about a revived JCPOA, although one may look to a JCPOA plus plus, something well beyond the JCPOA," Prince Faisal said.

"Because reviving the &nbsp;JCPOA as it exists now will only bring us to the point where we were, which is a deficient agreement that doesn't address the full issues related to Iran's nuclear activities and other original activities."

Saudi Arabia has been targeted with dozens of ballistic missile and drone attacks since the start of last year, including a devastating strike on Aramco's facilities in the country's east, which temporarily knocked out half the kingdom's crude output.&nbsp;

That strike was claimed by the Tehran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is fighting a grinding five-year conflict to back the internationally recognised government, but the United States said it involved cruise missiles from Iran.&nbsp;

(With AFP inputs)

Saudi Arabia said on Saturday that a consultation with Gulf states was necessary if US nuclear agreement with Iran was to be revived. It warned that such an approach was the only path towards a sustainable agreement.

Saudi Arabia said on Saturday that a consultation with Gulf states was necessary if US nuclear agreement with Iran was to be revived. It warned that such an approach was the only path towards a sustainable agreement. Under the leadership of Joe Biden, there are signs that the US will return to the nuclear deal with Iran that was struck in 2015. Donald Trump had withdrawn from the agreement. Biden has indicated that he will bring Iran's US-allied Arab neighbours, such as Saudi Arabia, which sees Iran as its arch-rival, into the process. "Primarily what we expect is that we are fully consulted, that we and our other regional friends are fully consulted in what goes on vis a vis the negotiations with Iran," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told AFP. × "The only way towards reaching an agreement that is sustainable is through such consultation," he said on the sidelines of a security conference in Bahrain's Manama. "I think we've seen as a result of the after effects of the JCPOA that not involving the regional countries results in a build up of mistrust and neglect of the issues of real concern and of real effect on regional security." Also Read | 'Strong support from President Trump': Saudi Arabia says final agreement with Qatar 'within reach' When he was asked whether the Biden administration was already in touch with Saudi Arabia to decide about revival of the deal, Prince Faisal said that there were no contacts as yet but that Saudi Arabia was reasy to engage with Biden when he takes office. "We are confident that both an incoming Biden administration, but also our other partners, including the Europeans, have fully signed on to the need to have all the regional parties involved in a resolution," he said. 'JCPOA plus plus' Germany said in recent days that a new, broader Iran nuclear accord must be reached to also rein in Tehran's ballistic missile programme, warning that the 2015 deal was no longer enough. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, talked of a "nuclear agreement plus", in language also deployed by the Saudi minister. "I don't know about a revived JCPOA, although one may look to a JCPOA plus plus, something well beyond the JCPOA," Prince Faisal said. "Because reviving the JCPOA as it exists now will only bring us to the point where we were, which is a deficient agreement that doesn't address the full issues related to Iran's nuclear activities and other original activities." Saudi Arabia has been targeted with dozens of ballistic missile and drone attacks since the start of last year, including a devastating strike on Aramco's facilities in the country's east, which temporarily knocked out half the kingdom's crude output. That strike was claimed by the Tehran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is fighting a grinding five-year conflict to back the internationally recognised government, but the United States said it involved cruise missiles from Iran. (With AFP inputs)

Talks with Gulf states necessary for US-Iran deal revival: Saudi Arabia

Public debates about China’s Middle East policy are as much internal Chinese discussions as they are indications of where Beijing’s thinking is going and efforts to nudge countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to accommodate potential policy changes.

Relying on scholars rather than officials, China is signalling to Gulf states adjustments they would have to make to enable China to become more engaged in regional security and geopolitics.

The subtext in the scholars’ writings and statements is that a failure to reduce tension, particularly with Iran, could persuade China to either reduce its economic involvement in the Middle East or focus on relations with non-Arab states, two of which are arch-rivals of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

At the bottom line, China’s subtle hints at what it would like Gulf states to do is in line with a Russian proposal that calls for a non-aggression agreement with Iran and possibly Turkey that would significantly reduce the risk of disputes spinning out of control and allow China to expand its engagement beyond economics.

In the latest blast, Chinese Middle East scholar Fan Hongda suggested that China rather than “overestimating” the importance of Arab states should pay more attention to the Middle East’s non-Arab powers, Turkey, Israel, and particularly Iran.

"Given Iran's expressed willingness to strengthen bilateral relations (with Beijing), China needs to respond more actively," Mr Fan said in an op-ed published by Lianhe Zaobao, a Chinese language newspaper in Singapore.

Driving the point home, Mr Fan argued in two articles in Hamshahri, a popular Iranian newspaper published by the municipality of Tehran, that China should forge closer ties to Iran irrespective of US policy or potential Arab opposition. “These overcautious concerns have no advantage whatsoever for the 'second most powerful country in the world,” Mr Fan said referring to China.

The timing of Mr Fan’s article will not have been lost on Gulf leaders. It comes on the back of the publication in Iran of a draft 25-year multi-billion dollar Chinese-Iranian agreement on economic and military cooperation. The draft sparked intense speculation about Chinese Middle East policy and how realistic an agreement was.

To capitalize on the speculation, Iran substantially increased the number of companies populating its pavilion at this month’s China International Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai.

Mr Fan’s article was further published as US President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office in January with the stated intention to break with Donald J. Trump’s harsh ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions policy and return the United States to the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program. Mr Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018.

China’s suggestion that it has alternatives in the Middle East puts pressure on countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE as they try to come to grips with a Biden administration that is likely to put greater emphasis on human rights and take a more critical view towards Gulf involvement in wars in Yemen and Libya.

Similarly, the suggestion anticipated a Biden administration effort to rejigger, if not reduce, the United States’ security commitment to the Middle East and possibly entertain a more multilateral regional architecture.

Mr Fan’s proposal follows an article by prominent Chinese scholars Sun Degang and Wu Sike &nbsp;arguing that the Middle East was a “key region in big power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in a new era.”

Messrs. Sun and Wu indicated that Chinese characteristics would involve “seeking common ground while reserving differences,” a formula that implies conflict management rather than conflict resolution.

The scholars said Chinese engagement in Middle Eastern security would seek to build an inclusive and shared regional collective security mechanism based on fairness, justice, multilateralism, comprehensive governance, and the containment of differences.

Earlier, Niu Xinchun, director of Middle East studies at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), widely viewed as one of China’s most influential think tanks, adopted a different tone to drive the same message home: China’s interest in the Middle East was waning. To avoid losing China, Gulf states need to create a degree of stability.

“For China, the Middle East is always on the very distant backburner of China’s strategic global strategies … Covid-19, combined with the oil price crisis, will dramatically change the Middle East. (This) will change China’s investment model in the Middle East,” Mr. Niu said.

With few exceptions, Gulf states and media have largely remained silent about Chinese voices that reflect thinking in Beijing that calls into question China’s relations with key Arab states.

No doubt, Gulf states believe that China’s dependence on Middle Eastern energy and their significance to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) makes them all but indispensable.

The BRI is Chinese President’s Xi Jinping’s energy, infrastructure, and telecommunications-driven Eurasia-wide signature foreign policy initiative.

While the Gulf states may not be wrong, they remain vulnerable in an environment in which shifts in US policy force them to hedge their bets and be more attentive to the positions of China in an increasingly multi-polar world. 
 
Said Mordechai Chaziza, an expert on China-Middle East relations: “Beijing has indeed become more concerned about the stability of Middle Eastern regimes. Its growing regional interests combined with its BRI ambitions underscore that Middle East stability, particularly in the Persian Gulf, is now a matter of strategic concern for China.” 
A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox.

(With inputs from Dr Alessandro Arduino, he is a principal research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore.)

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do&nbsp;not represent the views of&nbsp;WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse&nbsp;the views of the writer)

Public debates about China’s Middle East policy are as much internal Chinese discussions as they are indications of where Beijing’s thinking is going and efforts to nudge countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to accommodate potential policy changes.

Public debates about China’s Middle East policy are as much internal Chinese discussions as they are indications of where Beijing’s thinking is going and efforts to nudge countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to accommodate potential policy changes. Relying on scholars rather than officials, China is signalling to Gulf states adjustments they would have to make to enable China to become more engaged in regional security and geopolitics. The subtext in the scholars’ writings and statements is that a failure to reduce tension, particularly with Iran, could persuade China to either reduce its economic involvement in the Middle East or focus on relations with non-Arab states, two of which are arch-rivals of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. At the bottom line, China’s subtle hints at what it would like Gulf states to do is in line with a Russian proposal that calls for a non-aggression agreement with Iran and possibly Turkey that would significantly reduce the risk of disputes spinning out of control and allow China to expand its engagement beyond economics. In the latest blast, Chinese Middle East scholar Fan Hongda suggested that China rather than “overestimating” the importance of Arab states should pay more attention to the Middle East’s non-Arab powers, Turkey, Israel, and particularly Iran. "Given Iran's expressed willingness to strengthen bilateral relations (with Beijing), China needs to respond more actively," Mr Fan said in an op-ed published by Lianhe Zaobao, a Chinese language newspaper in Singapore. Driving the point home, Mr Fan argued in two articles in Hamshahri, a popular Iranian newspaper published by the municipality of Tehran, that China should forge closer ties to Iran irrespective of US policy or potential Arab opposition. “These overcautious concerns have no advantage whatsoever for the 'second most powerful country in the world,” Mr Fan said referring to China. The timing of Mr Fan’s article will not have been lost on Gulf leaders. It comes on the back of the publication in Iran of a draft 25-year multi-billion dollar Chinese-Iranian agreement on economic and military cooperation. The draft sparked intense speculation about Chinese Middle East policy and how realistic an agreement was. To capitalize on the speculation, Iran substantially increased the number of companies populating its pavilion at this month’s China International Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai. Mr Fan’s article was further published as US President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office in January with the stated intention to break with Donald J. Trump’s harsh ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions policy and return the United States to the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program. Mr Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018. China’s suggestion that it has alternatives in the Middle East puts pressure on countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE as they try to come to grips with a Biden administration that is likely to put greater emphasis on human rights and take a more critical view towards Gulf involvement in wars in Yemen and Libya. Similarly, the suggestion anticipated a Biden administration effort to rejigger, if not reduce, the United States’ security commitment to the Middle East and possibly entertain a more multilateral regional architecture. Mr Fan’s proposal follows an article by prominent Chinese scholars Sun Degang and Wu Sike arguing that the Middle East was a “key region in big power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in a new era.” Messrs. Sun and Wu indicated that Chinese characteristics would involve “seeking common ground while reserving differences,” a formula that implies conflict management rather than conflict resolution. The scholars said Chinese engagement in Middle Eastern security would seek to build an inclusive and shared regional collective security mechanism based on fairness, justice, multilateralism, comprehensive governance, and the containment of differences. Earlier, Niu Xinchun, director of Middle East studies at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), widely viewed as one of China’s most influential think tanks, adopted a different tone to drive the same message home: China’s interest in the Middle East was waning. To avoid losing China, Gulf states need to create a degree of stability. “For China, the Middle East is always on the very distant backburner of China’s strategic global strategies … Covid-19, combined with the oil price crisis, will dramatically change the Middle East. (This) will change China’s investment model in the Middle East,” Mr. Niu said. With few exceptions, Gulf states and media have largely remained silent about Chinese voices that reflect thinking in Beijing that calls into question China’s relations with key Arab states. No doubt, Gulf states believe that China’s dependence on Middle Eastern energy and their significance to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) makes them all but indispensable. The BRI is Chinese President’s Xi Jinping’s energy, infrastructure, and telecommunications-driven Eurasia-wide signature foreign policy initiative. While the Gulf states may not be wrong, they remain vulnerable in an environment in which shifts in US policy force them to hedge their bets and be more attentive to the positions of China in an increasingly multi-polar world. Said Mordechai Chaziza, an expert on China-Middle East relations: “Beijing has indeed become more concerned about the stability of Middle Eastern regimes. Its growing regional interests combined with its BRI ambitions underscore that Middle East stability, particularly in the Persian Gulf, is now a matter of strategic concern for China.” A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox. (With inputs from Dr Alessandro Arduino, he is a principal research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore.) (Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer)

Subtly, China pressures Gulf states to reduce regional tensions

Iranian naval activity in the Gulf and Turkish maritime expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean have hogged the limelight, but Russian and Gulf policymakers are also watching with Argus eyes moves by the Islamic Republic in the Caspian Sea.

Iran’s navy is no match for its Russian counterpart and Iran’s naval presence in the Caspian is miniscule.

Yet, recent Iranian posturing and statements, coupled with visits by senior commanders to naval facilities and a shipyard on Iran’s Caspian coast where a destroyer is being repaired and modernised, and diplomatic efforts to tighten relations with former Soviet littoral states, have raised eyebrows in Moscow as well as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

Senior military officials, including Iranian navy commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, his deputy, Admiral Habibullah Sayari, and Admiral Amir Rastegari, who oversees naval construction, stressed the importance to Iranian national security of the Caspian on tours of facilities on the coast.

They also suggested closer cooperation and joint naval exercises with countries like Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

“The Caspian Sea is the sea of peace and friendship and we can share our military tactics with our neighbours in this region. We are fully ready to expand ties with neighbouring and friendly countries,” Admiral Khanzadi said in April.

The Iranian moves are about more than only strengthening its military presence in a basin that it shares with Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan.

A 2018 agreement among the littoral states, made necessary by the collapse of the Soviet Union, barred entry to the basin by military vessels of non-littoral states but failed to regulate the divvying up of the sea’s abundant resources.

Closer naval ties with Caspian Sea states would allow Iran to leverage its position at a time that Central Asians worry about greater Chinese security engagement in their part of the world that undermines a tacit understanding in which Russia shouldered responsibility for regional security while China focussed on economic development.

Increased Chinese engagement raises the spectre of the export of aspects of the People’s Republic’s 21st century, Orwellian surveillance state amid widespread anti-Chinese sentiment as a result of China’s brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in the troubled north-western province of Xinjiang.

Hard hit by the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, Central Asians are torn between wanting to benefit from Chinese willingness to revive Belt and Road-related projects and their concerns that enhanced Chinese influence could impact their lives.

Popular sentiment forced Kyrgyzstan early on in the pandemic to cancel a $275 million logistics project. The Kazakh foreign ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador to explain an article published on a Chinese website that asserted that the Central Asian country wanted to return to Chinese rule.

Kazakh media called for China and the US to leave Kazakhstan alone after the Chinese foreign ministry claimed that the coronavirus had originated in US-funded laboratories in the country.

Iranian efforts, boosted by the Indian-funded deep seaport of Chabahar that serves as a conduit for Indian exports to Central Asia, to benefit in the margin from big Asian power rivalry, has opened the region, including the Caspian basin, to greater competition with the Islamic Republic’s Gulf opponents, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Iran hopes that geography and Central Asian distrust of past Saudi promotion of its ultra-conservative strand of Islam will work to its advantage.

That hope may not be in vain. Tajik foreign minister Sirodjidin Muhriddin, despite past troubled relations with the Islamic Republic, opted a year ago to ignore a Saudi invitation to attend an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (ICO) conference in the kingdom and visit Iran instead.

Iran has since agreed to invest $4 billion in the completion of a five kilometre-long tunnel that will link the Tajik capital of Dushanbe with the country’s second-largest city, Khujand.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have fared somewhat better in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

Saudi utility developer ACWA Power, in which China’s state-owned Silk Road Fund has a 49 percent stake, and the UAE’s Masdar or Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company agreed to invest in Azerbaijani renewable energy projects.

ACWA Power also recently signed agreements in Uzbekistan worth $ 2.5 billion for the construction of a power plant and a wind farm.

Perhaps Iran’s strongest trump card is that by linking the Caspian to the Arabian Sea it can provide what the Gulf states cannot: cheap and short access to the Indo-Pacific.

Already, Iran is written all over Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev’s transportation infrastructure plans. A decree issued in late 2017 identified various corridors as key to his plans, including the extension of a rail line that connects Uzbekistan’s Termez to Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif to the Afghan city of Herat from where it would branch out to Iran’s Bandar Abbas port, Chabahar; and Bazargan on the Iranian-Turkish border.

“As Tashkent seeks to diversify its economic relations, Iran continues to loom large in these calculations. For Uzbekistan, not only do Iranian ports offer the shortest and cheapest route to the sea, but several future rail projects cannot be accomplished without Tehran’s active participation,” said Central Asia analyst Umida Hashimova. 
 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)&nbsp;

Iranian naval activity in the Gulf and Turkish maritime expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean have hogged the limelight, but Russian and Gulf policymakers are also watching with Argus eyes moves by the Islamic Republic in the Caspian Sea.

Iranian naval activity in the Gulf and Turkish maritime expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean have hogged the limelight, but Russian and Gulf policymakers are also watching with Argus eyes moves by the Islamic Republic in the Caspian Sea. Iran’s navy is no match for its Russian counterpart and Iran’s naval presence in the Caspian is miniscule. Yet, recent Iranian posturing and statements, coupled with visits by senior commanders to naval facilities and a shipyard on Iran’s Caspian coast where a destroyer is being repaired and modernised, and diplomatic efforts to tighten relations with former Soviet littoral states, have raised eyebrows in Moscow as well as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Senior military officials, including Iranian navy commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, his deputy, Admiral Habibullah Sayari, and Admiral Amir Rastegari, who oversees naval construction, stressed the importance to Iranian national security of the Caspian on tours of facilities on the coast. They also suggested closer cooperation and joint naval exercises with countries like Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. “The Caspian Sea is the sea of peace and friendship and we can share our military tactics with our neighbours in this region. We are fully ready to expand ties with neighbouring and friendly countries,” Admiral Khanzadi said in April. The Iranian moves are about more than only strengthening its military presence in a basin that it shares with Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. A 2018 agreement among the littoral states, made necessary by the collapse of the Soviet Union, barred entry to the basin by military vessels of non-littoral states but failed to regulate the divvying up of the sea’s abundant resources. Closer naval ties with Caspian Sea states would allow Iran to leverage its position at a time that Central Asians worry about greater Chinese security engagement in their part of the world that undermines a tacit understanding in which Russia shouldered responsibility for regional security while China focussed on economic development. Increased Chinese engagement raises the spectre of the export of aspects of the People’s Republic’s 21st century, Orwellian surveillance state amid widespread anti-Chinese sentiment as a result of China’s brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in the troubled north-western province of Xinjiang. Hard hit by the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, Central Asians are torn between wanting to benefit from Chinese willingness to revive Belt and Road-related projects and their concerns that enhanced Chinese influence could impact their lives. Popular sentiment forced Kyrgyzstan early on in the pandemic to cancel a $275 million logistics project. The Kazakh foreign ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador to explain an article published on a Chinese website that asserted that the Central Asian country wanted to return to Chinese rule. Kazakh media called for China and the US to leave Kazakhstan alone after the Chinese foreign ministry claimed that the coronavirus had originated in US-funded laboratories in the country. Iranian efforts, boosted by the Indian-funded deep seaport of Chabahar that serves as a conduit for Indian exports to Central Asia, to benefit in the margin from big Asian power rivalry, has opened the region, including the Caspian basin, to greater competition with the Islamic Republic’s Gulf opponents, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran hopes that geography and Central Asian distrust of past Saudi promotion of its ultra-conservative strand of Islam will work to its advantage. That hope may not be in vain. Tajik foreign minister Sirodjidin Muhriddin, despite past troubled relations with the Islamic Republic, opted a year ago to ignore a Saudi invitation to attend an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (ICO) conference in the kingdom and visit Iran instead. Iran has since agreed to invest $4 billion in the completion of a five kilometre-long tunnel that will link the Tajik capital of Dushanbe with the country’s second-largest city, Khujand. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have fared somewhat better in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. Saudi utility developer ACWA Power, in which China’s state-owned Silk Road Fund has a 49 percent stake, and the UAE’s Masdar or Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company agreed to invest in Azerbaijani renewable energy projects. ACWA Power also recently signed agreements in Uzbekistan worth $ 2.5 billion for the construction of a power plant and a wind farm. Perhaps Iran’s strongest trump card is that by linking the Caspian to the Arabian Sea it can provide what the Gulf states cannot: cheap and short access to the Indo-Pacific. Already, Iran is written all over Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev’s transportation infrastructure plans. A decree issued in late 2017 identified various corridors as key to his plans, including the extension of a rail line that connects Uzbekistan’s Termez to Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif to the Afghan city of Herat from where it would branch out to Iran’s Bandar Abbas port, Chabahar; and Bazargan on the Iranian-Turkish border. “As Tashkent seeks to diversify its economic relations, Iran continues to loom large in these calculations. For Uzbekistan, not only do Iranian ports offer the shortest and cheapest route to the sea, but several future rail projects cannot be accomplished without Tehran’s active participation,” said Central Asia analyst Umida Hashimova. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

Iran's expanding naval presence in Caspian Sea puts spotlight on great power rivalry

This system is common in Gulf states where large portions of the population is foreign. In Qatar it requires workers to obtain their employers' consent before changing jobs, which advocate groups say leaves them open to abuse. Qatar will abolish Kafala labour.

Qatar to abolish 'Kafala' labour

Saudi and Iranian leaders are this week walking back from the brink, signalling that they want to avoid outright military confrontation and manage rather than resolve differences.

In fact, there is every reason to believe that neither Riyadh nor Tehran has a vested interest in a definitive solution of the Middle East and North Africa’s multiple problems.

The trick for men like Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is to find a controllable way of maintaining their potentially existential bitter rivalry without fighting what could be a devastating regional war.

To do so, both men appear to be making the right noises against the backdrop of an evolving US policy that is forcing Saudi Arabia to rethink its almost decade-long, often reckless and assertive go-it-alone foreign and defence policy and Iran to seek ways to level the playing field.

“The Anti-Iran Alliance is not just faltering, it’s crumbling. Bolton is gone; Bibi is going; MBZ has struck his deal with Iran; MBS is not far behind,” tweeted Council on Foreign Relations distinguished fellow and former US Middle East negotiator Martin S Indyk.

Indyk was referring to former US national security advisor John Bolton and embattled Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu while identifying United Arab Emirates crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed and his Saudi counterpart and namesake, Prince Mohammed, by their initials.

Signalling a change in tone, Saudi Arabia has gone quiet on its investigation into responsibility for last month's attacks on key Saudi oil facilities after earlier stopping just short of blaming Iran.

Prince Mohammed has, meanwhile, welcomed potential face-to-face talks between US President Donald J Trump and Rouhani, saying “absolutely... This is what we all ask for.”

Prince Mohammed’s remarks were tempered by Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs Adel al-Jubeir who spelled out the kingdom’s demands.

Without clarifying whether these were a pre-condition for talks or issues to be discussed, Al-Jubeir’s demands included “ending Iran’s involvement in the affairs of other countries; stopping support for terrorist organisations; abandoning the policy of destruction and sowing conflict; and freezing the plan to develop nuclear weapons and the ballistic-missile program.”

In response, Iran insisted that Saudi Arabia freeze its multibillion-dollar arms purchases from the United States, stop its intervention in Yemen and end discrimination against the Shiite Muslim minority in Saudi Arabia.

The chances of the two countries accepting the other’s conditions are virtually nil.

Nonetheless, Rouhani, with France, Iraq and Pakistan seeking to mediate, has kept the door open for talks with the United States which withdrew last year from the 2015 international agreement that curbs the Islamic republic's nuclear program and has since imposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran.

Addressing the Iranian cabinet this week, Rouhani termed a four-point plan put forward by French President Emmanuel Macron “acceptable.”

The plan calls for the United States to lift sanctions on Iran and allow it to freely export its oil and collect revenue in return for an Iranian commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons and help ensure Gulf security.

Macron’s proposal includes a $15 billion credit line that would enable Iran to export oil and would also restore the P5+1 framework of signatories of the nuclear accord, France, Britain, Russia, China, Germany and the US.

Like with Al Jubeir’s demands, the question is what comes first, the chicken or the egg.

Trump sees lifting of sanctions as the outcome of talks while Rouhani has insisted that sanctions be removed prior to negotiations.

To step up the pressure, Iran has been gradually breaching the terms of the accord and increasing tensions that bring the region closer to the brink of war in a bid to position negotiations as the only alternative.

Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh put the changing mood on public display at a Russian energy conference chaired by President Vladimir Putin when he described his Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, a son of King Salman, the Saudi monarch, as “a friend.”

“Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has been a friend for over 22 years,” Zanganeh said.

The two men were later seen holding hands together with Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Mohammed Barkindo and speaking on the sidelines of the conference in the first such encounter since the attack on the oil facilities.

The new mood could over time, against the backdrop of mounting Gulf doubts about the reliability of the United States’ regional defence umbrella, make a Chinese-backed Russian proposal for a multilateral security architecture more attractive.

The Russian proposal is built on the notion that security in the Gulf would be better served by an architecture that downplays regional rivalries rather than accentuating them as part of the US umbrella that is rooted in the Saudi-Iranian divide and designed to protect the conservative Arab monarchies against the Islamic republic.

The Russian approach theoretically could accommodate the survival strategies of both the Iranian regime and the Saudi ruling family.

Upholding Iran’s revolutionary façade requires the existence of an imperialist foreign threat that also gives a lease on life to the vested economic interests of hardliners grouped around the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Saudi Arabia, figuring that it needs at least six years to develop its natural gas potential to the degree that it can compete with Iran, home to the world’s second-largest reserves, may want to see an Iranian regime that is weakened and possibly destabilised, but not on the verge of collapse. 
 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL) &nbsp;

&nbsp;

Saudi and Iranian leaders are this week walking back from the brink, signalling that they want to avoid outright military confrontation and manage rather than resolve differences.

Saudi and Iranian leaders are this week walking back from the brink, signalling that they want to avoid outright military confrontation and manage rather than resolve differences. In fact, there is every reason to believe that neither Riyadh nor Tehran has a vested interest in a definitive solution of the Middle East and North Africa’s multiple problems. The trick for men like Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is to find a controllable way of maintaining their potentially existential bitter rivalry without fighting what could be a devastating regional war. To do so, both men appear to be making the right noises against the backdrop of an evolving US policy that is forcing Saudi Arabia to rethink its almost decade-long, often reckless and assertive go-it-alone foreign and defence policy and Iran to seek ways to level the playing field. “The Anti-Iran Alliance is not just faltering, it’s crumbling. Bolton is gone; Bibi is going; MBZ has struck his deal with Iran; MBS is not far behind,” tweeted Council on Foreign Relations distinguished fellow and former US Middle East negotiator Martin S Indyk. Indyk was referring to former US national security advisor John Bolton and embattled Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu while identifying United Arab Emirates crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed and his Saudi counterpart and namesake, Prince Mohammed, by their initials. Signalling a change in tone, Saudi Arabia has gone quiet on its investigation into responsibility for last month's attacks on key Saudi oil facilities after earlier stopping just short of blaming Iran. Prince Mohammed has, meanwhile, welcomed potential face-to-face talks between US President Donald J Trump and Rouhani, saying “absolutely... This is what we all ask for.” Prince Mohammed’s remarks were tempered by Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs Adel al-Jubeir who spelled out the kingdom’s demands. Without clarifying whether these were a pre-condition for talks or issues to be discussed, Al-Jubeir’s demands included “ending Iran’s involvement in the affairs of other countries; stopping support for terrorist organisations; abandoning the policy of destruction and sowing conflict; and freezing the plan to develop nuclear weapons and the ballistic-missile program.” In response, Iran insisted that Saudi Arabia freeze its multibillion-dollar arms purchases from the United States, stop its intervention in Yemen and end discrimination against the Shiite Muslim minority in Saudi Arabia. The chances of the two countries accepting the other’s conditions are virtually nil. Nonetheless, Rouhani, with France, Iraq and Pakistan seeking to mediate, has kept the door open for talks with the United States which withdrew last year from the 2015 international agreement that curbs the Islamic republic's nuclear program and has since imposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran. Addressing the Iranian cabinet this week, Rouhani termed a four-point plan put forward by French President Emmanuel Macron “acceptable.” The plan calls for the United States to lift sanctions on Iran and allow it to freely export its oil and collect revenue in return for an Iranian commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons and help ensure Gulf security. Macron’s proposal includes a $15 billion credit line that would enable Iran to export oil and would also restore the P5+1 framework of signatories of the nuclear accord, France, Britain, Russia, China, Germany and the US. Like with Al Jubeir’s demands, the question is what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Trump sees lifting of sanctions as the outcome of talks while Rouhani has insisted that sanctions be removed prior to negotiations. To step up the pressure, Iran has been gradually breaching the terms of the accord and increasing tensions that bring the region closer to the brink of war in a bid to position negotiations as the only alternative. Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh put the changing mood on public display at a Russian energy conference chaired by President Vladimir Putin when he described his Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, a son of King Salman, the Saudi monarch, as “a friend.” “Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has been a friend for over 22 years,” Zanganeh said. The two men were later seen holding hands together with Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Mohammed Barkindo and speaking on the sidelines of the conference in the first such encounter since the attack on the oil facilities. The new mood could over time, against the backdrop of mounting Gulf doubts about the reliability of the United States’ regional defence umbrella, make a Chinese-backed Russian proposal for a multilateral security architecture more attractive. The Russian proposal is built on the notion that security in the Gulf would be better served by an architecture that downplays regional rivalries rather than accentuating them as part of the US umbrella that is rooted in the Saudi-Iranian divide and designed to protect the conservative Arab monarchies against the Islamic republic. The Russian approach theoretically could accommodate the survival strategies of both the Iranian regime and the Saudi ruling family. Upholding Iran’s revolutionary façade requires the existence of an imperialist foreign threat that also gives a lease on life to the vested economic interests of hardliners grouped around the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Saudi Arabia, figuring that it needs at least six years to develop its natural gas potential to the degree that it can compete with Iran, home to the world’s second-largest reserves, may want to see an Iranian regime that is weakened and possibly destabilised, but not on the verge of collapse. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

Gulf straddles the edge of war and peace

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/mike-pompeo-confident-china-trade-talks-will-not-be-hurt-over-iran-oil-sanctions-214566">US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo</a> met Monday with the king of Saudi Arabia as he sought to coordinate with allies over <a href="https://www.wionews.com/opinions/trouble-in-the-gulf-as-us-iran-dispute-threatens-to-escalate-into-serious-conflict-220323">soaring tensions with Iran</a>.

On a day trip scheduled after Iran shot down a US drone, Pompeo flew into the Red Sea city of Jeddah and met with King Salman at his palace.

"You are a dear friend," the king told Pompeo as he shook hands with the top US diplomat and his aides.

Pompeo is later due to meet the powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, before flying for talks in the United Arab Emirates, US officials said.

Both Saudi and Emirati leaders advocate a tough US approach against regional rival Iran, whose downing of the unmanned drone prompted <a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/donald-trump-warns-iran-of-imminent-attack-229251">President Donald Trump</a> to order a military strike before changing his mind.

Pompeo, speaking to reporters as he left Washington, called Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates "two great allies in the challenge that Iran presents".

"We'll be talking with them about how to make sure that we are all strategically aligned and how we can build out a global coalition," Pompeo said.

He said the United States sought a coalition "not only throughout the Gulf states but in Asia and in Europe that understands this challenge and that is prepared to push back against the world's largest state sponsor of terror".

But the hawkish US stance has drawn limited support among its allies in Europe, which still support a denuclearisation deal negotiated under former president Barack Obama from which Trump pulled out last year, triggering tensions.

Iran says that the US drone encroached its airspace -- a charge that Washington denies -- and accuses Washington of waging economic warfare by unilaterally imposing sanctions, including trying to stop all its oil exports.

The US point man on Iran, Brian Hook, on Monday held his own talks in Oman, which has often served as a go-between for Washington and Tehran.

Pompeo's trip comes despite growing controversy inside the United States over the Trump administration's cosy relationship with Mohammed bin Salman after US-based dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year.

Pompeo used rare emergency powers, citing Iran as a threat, to authorise $8.1 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, despite concerns in the US Congress that the arms will go to kill civilians in the devastating war in Yemen.

Pompeo added the Middle East stops on his way to a previously scheduled visit to India.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Monday with the king of Saudi Arabia as he sought to coordinate with allies over soaring tensions with Iran. On a day trip scheduled after Iran shot down a US drone, Pompeo flew into the Red Sea city of Jeddah and met with King Salman at his palace.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Monday with the king of Saudi Arabia as he sought to coordinate with allies over soaring tensions with Iran. On a day trip scheduled after Iran shot down a US drone, Pompeo flew into the Red Sea city of Jeddah and met with King Salman at his palace. "You are a dear friend," the king told Pompeo as he shook hands with the top US diplomat and his aides. Pompeo is later due to meet the powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, before flying for talks in the United Arab Emirates, US officials said. Both Saudi and Emirati leaders advocate a tough US approach against regional rival Iran, whose downing of the unmanned drone prompted President Donald Trump to order a military strike before changing his mind. Pompeo, speaking to reporters as he left Washington, called Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates "two great allies in the challenge that Iran presents". "We'll be talking with them about how to make sure that we are all strategically aligned and how we can build out a global coalition," Pompeo said. He said the United States sought a coalition "not only throughout the Gulf states but in Asia and in Europe that understands this challenge and that is prepared to push back against the world's largest state sponsor of terror". But the hawkish US stance has drawn limited support among its allies in Europe, which still support a denuclearisation deal negotiated under former president Barack Obama from which Trump pulled out last year, triggering tensions. Iran says that the US drone encroached its airspace -- a charge that Washington denies -- and accuses Washington of waging economic warfare by unilaterally imposing sanctions, including trying to stop all its oil exports. The US point man on Iran, Brian Hook, on Monday held his own talks in Oman, which has often served as a go-between for Washington and Tehran. Pompeo's trip comes despite growing controversy inside the United States over the Trump administration's cosy relationship with Mohammed bin Salman after US-based dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year. Pompeo used rare emergency powers, citing Iran as a threat, to authorise $8.1 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, despite concerns in the US Congress that the arms will go to kill civilians in the devastating war in Yemen. Pompeo added the Middle East stops on his way to a previously scheduled visit to India.

Mike Pompeo meets Saudi king Mohammed bin Salman on Iran crisis

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