Gulf state officials are set to meet with President Trump on Tuesday and urge him to avoid any escalation with Iran in favor of diplomacy, according to a new report.
Officials from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are expected to meet with the president on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York to discuss the ongoing war in Iran, Bloomberg reported.
The group — which includes key allies like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar — are hoping for an off-ramp to the war that has disrupted the Persian Gulf’s economy and sowed chaos under Iran’s missile and drone assaults.
Trump has recently reiterated his threats of destroying Iran, which refuses to reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the US concedes to its demands.
Tehran has warned of widespread attacks on US troops and America’s allies in the region if the war heats up again, with the Gulf allies worried that its critical infrastructure would be targeted as collateral.
The Gulf states, which originally urged Trump not to start the war with Iran at all, have seen previous success in swaying the president towards diplomacy.
Trump said he called off a major attack on Iran last month after Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar all told him that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was within reach.
The deal, however, never manifested, and the conflict has since expanded to Yemen, where the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have taken over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a key oil route in the Arabian Peninsula.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has also warned that the country is prepared for a “long war,” but that officials were still willing to negotiate as Tehran’s economy continues to sink under US sanctions and sky-high inflation.
“If our national interests require us to fight, we must fight,” an IRGC spokesman said Tuesday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. “If our national interests require us to negotiate alongside the war, we must negotiate.”
Trump’s current position remains unclear, but he suggested over the weekend that a meeting between him and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian may be possible this week during the UN General Assembly.
