Saudi Arabia has given a qualified public welcome to the US-led nuclear agreement with Iran, saying it hopes a final deal will strengthen stability and security in the Middle East and beyond. Its cautious response suggests it is not convinced that will prove to be the case.
State media reported on Friday that King Salman had conveyed the carefully-worded message during a telephone conversation with Barack Obama, maintaining the kingdom’s position of avoiding an open confrontation with the US while warning about, and confronting, Iran’s regional ambitions.
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The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) also pointedly said that Obama had raised the issue of the crisis in Yemen, where the Saudis are leading a military intervention against Houthi rebels they say are backed by Tehran, with the goal of restoring President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power. The US is supporting operation Decisive Storm, as is Britain.
Salman “expressed his hope that reaching a final binding deal would strengthen the stability and security of the region and the world,” the SPA reported.
Oman, the Gulf state politically closest to Iran, which brokered secret nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran in 2012, hailed the Lausanne agreement as historic.
Riyadh has signalled in the past that it might seek nuclear warheads from its ally Pakistan if Tehran were to develop them. It has had to accept, however, that Obama’s goal is to prevent proliferation and, unlike Israel, has refrained from open criticism of the emerging deal.
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Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf’s hawks, fear Iran’s international rehabilitation through the nuclear agreement will ease its political and economic isolation and embolden its designs in the Arab world. They will be pressing hard to ensure that Washington keeps up pressure on Iran on other fronts, diplomats say.
It is commonly said, with considerable exaggeration, that Tehran now controls four Arab capitals: Damascus, where it is helping keep President Bashar al-Assad in power; Beirut, where its ally Hezbollah is a powerful force; Baghdad, where Iran is helping the Shia-led government fight Islamic State jihadis; and now Sana’a in Yemen.
Obama said on Thursday that he had invited Gulf leaders to a spring summit at Camp David to discuss security cooperation, a sign he knows he will need to work hard to keep the Saudis and their partners on side. Another pointer to changing US priorities was that the president called King Salman before speaking to the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
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The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) comprises Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. Qatar, like Oman, has cordial ties with Iran. Egypt, which is taking part in the Yemeni intervention, shares Saudi views.
Sami al-Faraj, a Kuwaiti security advisor to the GCC, expressed unease at the deal. “If Iran ever gets away with possessing a nuclear capability one day, we will consider the international community responsible for that at these negotiations,” he said. “We will feel free to go and look for a counterweight.”
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Other Arab governments did not comment publicly on the agreement, perhaps because Friday is a holiday. Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said he “hoped the parties will reach a final agreement by 1 July”, but said Iran must do more to achieve this objective.
Sir William Patey, a former British ambassador to Riyadh, said this week that Saudi Arabia faced a dilemma over the nuclear issue. “They don’t want Iran to become a nuclear power and they will be as sceptical as the Israelis are as to whether this is going to be a real deal. On the other hand they won’t want to be forced into making a difficult decision.
“They will be sceptical but they won’t be critical and they will learn to manage. Their worst fears won’t be realised. There will be all sorts of obstacles to the sort of Iranian-American relations that the Saudis fear. If Iran could be brought into a regional security arrangement that’s something they would learn to adjust to.”
Obama “said our disagreements with Iran on its political behaviour and its using proxies to destabilise the region, that’s still there,” the Saudi political scientist Khaled al-Dakhil told Reuters. “And the sanctions related to these differences will remain in place. If that’s the case, as it looks now, then I believe the agreement will be acceptable to the Saudis.”
Media in the UAE reported that key economic sectors – re-exports, logistics, retail, banking and insurance – are already looking ahead to sanctions easing after June and Iran’s return to business as usual, especially in Dubai.
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