As it prepares for Israeli retaliation, Iran is urging its Arab neighbors not to allow Israel to use its airspace, two Gulf diplomats told NBC News on Friday.
Israel has vowed to respond to Iran’s attack, prompting Tehran to warn countries that aid to Israel could turn into war anyway, a diplomat said. Both asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive topic.
“The Gulf Cooperation Council is not interested in being caught in the crossfire,” said one diplomat. “Our focus is on reducing tension.”
Many Arab countries such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates are home to US oil bases and facilities vital to the global economy, and Iran’s warning about aid to Israel has raised fears in the region that these facilities could be attacked.
But the second diplomat added that it was unlikely that any Arab country would accept the Israelis using their airspace to attack Iran.
The two diplomats spoke after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Abbas Araghchi, his foreign minister, mounted an intense diplomatic effort to win the support of Gulf neighbors and persuade them to use their influence in Washington to contain the Israeli attack.
Araghchi visited Qatar and his country’s main regional rival, Saudi Arabia, where he held talks with the kingdom’s leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Pezeshkian also met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of an international forum in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, to discuss the situation in the Middle East, the Kremlin said on Friday. The Kremlin added that it had officially accepted Putin’s invitation to visit the country on a state visit.
Before their meeting, Pezeshkian, widely seen as a relatively moderate man, told Russian state television that Israel must “stop killing innocent people” and that such actions had the support of the United States and the European Union.
Cursor previously wrote about why Hezbollah does not use high-precision missiles, Reuters reported.
