{"id":228888,"date":"2026-10-27T10:21:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T10:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/middle-east-peace-held-back-by-us-insistence-that-iran-is-a-threat-omans-foreign-minister-says-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T10:21:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T10:21:20","slug":"middle-east-peace-held-back-by-us-insistence-that-iran-is-a-threat-omans-foreign-minister-says-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/middle-east-peace-held-back-by-us-insistence-that-iran-is-a-threat-omans-foreign-minister-says-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle East peace held back by US insistence that Iran is a threat, Oman\u2019s foreign minister says – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Badr Albusaidi calls for security pact involving Gulf states, Iraq and Iran with US no longer primary provider of security
The Middle East\u2019s ability to solve its problems has been held back by America\u2019s 50-year insistence that the Gulf states should view Iran as a security threat, Oman\u2019s foreign minister said on Monday in a significant speech designed to break the deadlock over the region\u2019s future.
Badr Albusaidi called for a non-aggression security pact involving all six Gulf states as well as Iran<\/a> and Iraq. The US would in future no longer be the primary provider of security, he said.
He was speaking on the day high-level defence and intelligence officials from Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia<\/a> travelled to Tehran in an attempt to prevent a renewed outbreak of fighting between the US and Iran.
Tehran said the meeting also explored future security arrangements in the region. The high stakes were underlined by the sight of the Saudi defence minister, Khalid bin Salman, in Tehran weeks after Iran had struck Saudi infrastructure and as Iran-backed Houthis<\/a> continue to send missiles towards Riyadh.
Albusaidi is the first Gulf leader to break ranks so explicitly by calling for the mainly Sunni Gulf states to form a security alliance with Iran, a long-term aspiration of Tehran\u2019s.
Speaking at Girton College, Cambridge, he said the talks might be difficult and the proposal appeared counterintuitive, but \u201cissues such as the strait of Hormuz have become 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\u201d.
He added: \u201cWhat holds us back is that issues which ought to be handled at a regional level by the states of the Gulf themselves, are made more complex, more intractable and sometimes simply impossible to resolve because the region\u2019s security arrangements are insufficiently developed.
\u201cAnd they are insufficiently developed because they have relied for too long on the involvement of external powers.\u201d
He said that for half a century Iran \u201chad been systematically excluded from playing any meaningful role in the security arrangements of the region\u201d. This had led to \u201cprofoundly negative consequences, not just for Iran, but for the region as a whole\u201d, including the imposition of priorities on the region by external powers such as \u201cthe entirely false perception that there is a fundamental regional antagonism between Iran and the Arab states of the Gulf\u201d.
He added: \u201cPerhaps the most damaging of the priorities imposed on the region from the outside has been the requirement that Iran be excluded. Not just excluded. Worse. Positioned as the threat against which regional security had to be organised.\u201d
Oman is on the southern side of the strait of Hormuz, with Iran on the northern shores. The two countries have reached a temporary agreement on how shipping traffic should be managed in the strait, but the plan is on hold until the US and Iran lift their respective blockades of the waterway.
Albusaidi also indirectly challenged Donald Trump\u2019s case for a further attack on Iran by saying he believed the previous round of talks between the US and Iran in February, which Oman mediated, were \u201cmaking significant progress, and that an agreement was within reach. We still stand by that judgment today.\u201d
The Iranian foreign ministry has often proposed a security pact for the region in which Iran, as opposed to the US, plays a role. The US-Iran conflict may have reopened the debate among Gulf states about whether the heavy presence of US bases in their countries is a source of reassurance or insecurity. Oman is one Gulf state to have explored a regional security pact that includes Iran.
No Gulf state openly supported the US-Israeli attacks on Iran last year or this February, but some have covertly cooperated in the operations. Iran has sought to defend itself by attacking US bases and energy infrastructure in the Gulf states.
The meeting in Tehran was taking place against a backdrop of continued Pentagon briefings about a major US military buildup in preparation for a possible assault after the midterm elections. Qatari mediators spent much of Sunday in Tehran seeking terms for Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz.
Israeli media reports claimed that the country\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been trying to browbeat the military into provoking a war with Iran<\/a> before the Israeli elections on Tuesday.
Donald Trump\u2019s repeated call for Netanyahu to be re-elected only adds to the mood in the region that the US and Israel have the potential to be a long-term source of insecurity.
The idea of a security pact with Iran will be resisted in large parts of the Middle East after the damage Tehran has been prepared to inflict on the economies of the region, either directly or through the use of intermediaries such as the Houthis. Iranian hardliners increasingly say Iran\u2019s security best lies in trying to assemble a nuclear bomb.
A pact that is likely to take many months to negotiate may also not be a solution to Washington\u2019s demand that Iran reopen the strait of Hormuz before US sanctions are lifted.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Badr Albusaidi calls for security pact involving Gulf states, Iraq and Iran with US no longer primary provider of security The Middle East\u2019s ability to solve its problems has been held back by America\u2019s 50-year insistence that the Gulf states should view Iran as a security threat, Oman\u2019s foreign minister said on Monday in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":228889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}