Oman calls for Gulf, Iraq and Iran to unite under one security pact

Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi has called on the six Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman, as well as Iraq and Iran, to unite under a single "non-aggression" security pact. Speaking at the UK's Cambridge University on Monday during a diplomatic visit, Busaidi said it was time for the Gulf "to step up and take responsibility for our own security" and end reliance on "external powers". "The nuclear issue and the Hormuz issue are both impossible to resolve because external powers continue to define the terms of engagement, while regional powers are unable to take collective responsibility for making their own security arrangements and reach a consensus on them," Busaidi said.

"That is why in my talk today I am making a call for us in the Gulf to step up and take responsibility for our own security, and for us to do so inclusively." His speech came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity surrounding Iran, including senior officials from the Mecca Defence Alliance meeting Iranian leaders in Tehran on Monday. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Iran's top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, said the talks showed that US threats had little impact on regional diplomacy and marked the start of a "real transformation".

Members of the alliance - Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan - gathered to negotiate as regional powers strive to end the Israeli-US war against Iran and establish a security framework independent of Washington. The talks come as the conflict continues to threaten the region and the global economy, amid mounting fears of renewed US-Israeli attacks . 'False perception' of antagonism against Iran Busaidi said that positioning Iran as the security threat has been "the most damaging of the priorities imposed on the region from the outside".

"This produced an unstable regional system constructed on the entirely false perception that there is a fundamental regional antagonism between Iran and the Arab states of the Gulf," he said. "There is no such fundamental antagonism." While problems exist, Arabs and Persians have lived in peace in the Gulf for centuries, he added. Iran will not trade its nuclear insurance policy for worthless American promises Read More » "Any Gulf security architecture that doesn't include [Iran] is inherently unstable.

It's structurally unsound," he said. "And recent events expose the terrible cost of allowing the false perception of antagonism and exclusion." Since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran on 28 February, Gulf Arab countries have voiced frustration over the US failing to provide security against retaliatory attacks from Iran, which had targeted US military bases in the region. The US-Israel war on Iran has inflicted massive economic and security costs on Gulf countries.

By late March, the war had battered the UAE's economy, wiping more than $120bn from market capitalisation on the Dubai and Abu Dhabi stock exchanges, while over 18,400 flights were cancelled. The economic repercussions of the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have also reverberated worldwide. Busaidi said the region can no longer rely on cooperation from external partners and that the goal should be a "non-aggression pact" among the Gulf states.

"The time has come when it no longer makes sense just to blame everyone else," he said. "We need to begin a new regional dialogue on Gulf security, and we need to do so before other solutions are imposed on the region, which would effectively consolidate the pattern of dependency and exclusion for which we urgently need to find an alternative." He added that over time, external partnerships, such as with the US, would involve less military commitments and more economic and investment partnerships.

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