Iran-GCC talks deferred: Oman

Muscat: Oman has said that a planned regional meeting between Gulf states and Iran regarding the Strait of Hormuz has been postponed in the “interests of consensus”. The meeting was scheduled to take place on Monday.

An Iranian foreign ministry official said the postponement of the planned meeting in Oman was made at the request of certain regional countries and through a joint decision by Tehran and Muscat.

It is reported that the postponement was made in order to ensure a more conducive atmosphere for the discussions. The talks were originally initiated by Oman to mellow both sides who have been involved in intermittent attacks on targets of each other, the Gulf countries through the US forces in its basis in those countries and Iran in retaliation.

However, while Iran has cited use of the US bases in the Gulf countries, i.e. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE, for the US attacks on Iranian targets, as reason for Iran's attacks on Gulf targets, Oman has steered cleared of military involvement and took the initiative to calm the atmosphere and bring down the damages caused by the war. Oman has also been working closely with Iran to resolve the shipping stalemate through the Strait of Hormuz.

Al Jazeera reported that on Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said that the meeting is “a sign of Iran’s good intention because we have said all along that the security of the region must be guaranteed by the countries of the region, without intervention by the foreigners, without intervention by the outside powers”.

“This is a sign we will talk to our neighbours, despite the fact that their territories, their military bases or the military bases of the United States, were used to attack Iran,” he said.

It may also be recalled that at the New Delhi conference of BRICS, which concluded on Sunday, Iranian president Masoud Pezeskian and the Abu Dhabi Crown prince met face to face on Saturday in New Delhi, in a rare diplomatic encounter on the sidelines of the BRICS summit.

In an interview with an Indian media outlet, Pezeshkian later said Iran has no issues with UAE but is against US bases in the region being used to attack Iran.

Bahrain, also hosting a US base in its island and which bore the brunt of the burden in the conflict through Iran's aerial attacks, is not part of the scheduled talks.

The postponement of the Iran-GCC parleys can be believed to have come in the background of these developments.