US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets Saudi king for Iran crisis talks
- Pompeo met the Saudi king and crown prince in Jeddah days after the downing of a US drone
- He described Saudi Arabia and the UAE as ‘two great allies in the challenge that Iran presents’
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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks on Monday with Saudi leaders ahead of new sanctions on Tehran in a stand-off sparked by Washington’s withdrawal from a nuclear deal.
Saudi and Emirati leaders advocate a tough US approach against common foe Iran, which on Monday said any new US sanctions against it would have no “impact”.
He was later due to hold talks in the United Arab Emirates, US officials said.
Pompeo described Saudi Arabia and the UAE as “two great allies in the challenge that Iran presents”.
“We’ll be talking with them about how to make sure that we are all strategically aligned and how we can build out a global coalition,” Pompeo said.
Tehran says the drone violated Iranian airspace and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has backed the claim with maps and coordinates – allegations dismissed by Washington.
But on Monday, Iranian Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said no cyberattack against his country had ever succeeded.
“The media are asking about the veracity of the alleged cyberattack against Iran. No successful attack has been carried out by them, although they are making a lot of effort,” he said on Twitter.
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He acknowledged that Iran has “been facing cyberterrorism, such as Stuxnet, and unilateralism, such as sanctions”, naming a virus believed to have been engineered by Israel and the US to damage nuclear facilities in Iran.
Allies of the US have been calling for steps to defuse the crisis, saying they fear a small mistake on either side could trigger war.
“We are very concerned. We don’t think either side wants a war, but we are very concerned that we could get into an accidental war and we are doing everything we can to ratchet things down,” British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said.
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Iran has denied seeking a nuclear weapon, and says its programme is for civilian purposes.
With the US out of the deal, Iran has said it would reduce some of its nuclear commitments unless the remaining partners – Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – help it circumvent US sanctions and sell its oil.
The landmark 2015 accord sought to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief.
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US National Security Advisor Ambassador John Bolton, Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat and Russian Security Council Secretary General Nikolai Patrushev were set to participate in trilateral and bilateral meetings.
According to Russian state news agency TASS, Patrushev highlighted that at the meeting “Russia will take Iran’s interests into account, making them known to the Israelis and the Americans”.
He said the meeting would focus on the situation in Syria, where Iran has a presence.
Additional reporting by DPA
