For the first time since the signing of the US-Iran framework deal to end the war, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries came together in a powerful and unified response against Iran and to support the United States on Thursday, setting the stage for their future interactions with the Islamic Republic in the new war-shaped landscape of the region.
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Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman held a summit in Manama on Thursday with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss the US-Iran framework deal and, due to their severe economic urgencies, to hear from the US side the concrete steps towards reopening the free navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, based on US President Donald Trump’s repeated reassurances that navigation will go back to its pre-war status as agreed with with Tehran.
The frontline countries paying the massive price of the war expressed their “strong commitment to the US-GCC strategic partnership,” which Iran constantly tried to weaken militarily and politically, and underlined “the need to maintain momentum and unity” as the peace negotiations progress.
The joint GCC-US statement said “the shared objective of preventing Iran from ever developing or otherwise acquiring a nuclear weapon” — Washington’s key stated goal — as well as “addressing the full spectrum of Iran’s threats, including its ballistic missiles, drones, and support of proxies in the region,” which is the Gulf states’ requirement for “lasting regional peace and security.”
A point of contention for the Gulf states in the US-Iran framework deal is that Tehran can retain its missile stocks, posing continued danger to the region.
The strategic partners laid out their joint principle on the ongoing dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, stating that “free, unconditional, and unrestricted navigation, including the right of transit passage as guaranteed under international law, remains essential to regional and global security.”
“The ministers rejected any tolls, fees, or attempts to assert control over the Strait and welcomed the Sultanate of Oman and the International Maritime Organisation’s announcement on the launch of an evacuation plan for over 11,000 seafarers stranded in the region,” the US-GCC statement said.
The joint US-Gulf position comes as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) once again contradicted Trump on Thursday by claiming Iran’s sovereignty and control over the crucial waterway, warning ships against crossing without an Iranian permit, culminating in attacking a cargo ship late Thursday, testing the limits of the US-Iran MOU.
It was also a further signal from the IRGC that Tehran knows Hormuz remains the global pressure point and could use it to sow divisions among the Gulf nations.
During his limited tour of the Gulf, Rubio said that the debate is all about “semantics” and that “we are not going to do anything that undermines the security of our … longstanding allies in the region.”
“You can call it a toll, you can call it a fee, at the end of the day it’s all semantics,” Rubio sought to reassure the US allies in the region.
The GCC countries also laid out their own view that future economic engagement with Iran is possible, but that it is “conditional and reversible, contingent on Iran’s compliance with the MOU and the final agreement,” as well as the “cessation of its destabilising behaviour.”
This would lead to the “creation of the conditions necessary for economic engagement” in the region, they said.
In an additional decisive move, the Gulf countries and the US declared that the peace negotiations “are not conditional on the outcomes of other conflicts,” referring to Iran’s key negotiating condition that Israel end its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and moreover, they called for “the full disarmament” of Hezbollah.
The partners “stressed that full Lebanese sovereignty cannot be achieved while non-state armed groups maintain military capabilities outside the Lebanese state authority and called for the full disarmament of all such groups and the restoration of the Lebanese state’s monopoly of force, while recognising the importance of supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces in doing so.”
Widening the scope of their joint political action, while declaring their support for Trump’s plan to end the conflict in the Gaza Strip, the Gulf countries “reaffirmed that no one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to return,” but at the same time also called for the need to demilitarise Hamas in parallel with Hezbollah.
“The ministers stressed the importance of the demilitarisation of all non-state armed groups to enable Gaza’s reconstruction and the need to hand over responsibility to an independent, technocratic civil Palestinian committee,” the statement said.
How to make it work
While all Gulf states agree that relations with Iran will never be the same after its strikes on them, the economic urgency to restart free passage through the Strait of Hormuz is now pressing on the regional rivals and allies alike to work out their own interactions with Tehran, beyond Thursday’s show of unity.
The US-GCC statement signals a clear common position for a fresh regional order in which Iran would have to abide by its agreements in exchange of engagement, but the next evolutions fuelled by Iran’s continuing hardline stance and its divisive efforts may still lead to differing approaches among Gulf states, based on realism, rivalries and the complex histories of relations.
As representatives of GCC countries met Rubio in Bahrain on Thursday, reports emerged of possible plans for a regional summit in Saudi Arabia between the Gulf states and Iran, which may indicate competing visions on the future of the region, fuelled by speculations regarding Rubio’s choice in visiting just some and not all US allies in the Gulf.
The Washington-based think tank The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed on Thursday that “Iran is likely using discussions called for by the US-Iran memorandum of understanding (MoU) to reach arrangements with the Gulf states that would allow for sustained Iranian influence around the strait during the post-war period.”
According to the ISW, some Gulf countries “may be amenable” to cooperating with the Iranians on “a broader economic framework.”
A clause of the interim deal opens the door to Iran to be the one to discuss “the future management of the Strait of Hormuz with Oman and other littoral Persian Gulf states,” ISW said.
In turn, “the Iranian regime may be attempting to segue discussions on the status of the Strait of Hormuz into broader conversations about limiting US or Israeli influence and partnerships in the Gulf,” the ISW concluded.
Stability vs imposing new realities
Following Rubio’s visit to the United Arab Emirates, which left OPEC during the war to forge ahead with its own economic interests, the UAE’s presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said that “new geopolitical facts” cannot be imposed on the Gulf states because of a “treacherous aggression against them.”
“For imposing a fait accompli from the womb of aggression does not establish stability; rather, it sows new seeds of discord and conflict for the future. And this is precisely what applies to the Strait of Hormuz,” the UAE official said in a post on X on Thursday.
Qatar, which had a decisive role in reaching the US-Iran framework agreement, repeated multiple times that relations with Iran will never be the same after its attacks, but that negotiation and dialogue are the only way forward in the cold post-war regional framework.
Former senior Qatari defence official and Council on International Mediation President Nawaf M Al-Thani commented recently that “serious states do not have the luxury of theatrical foreign policy, and geography does not bend to outrage.”
“Iran remains where it has always been, across the water, tied to the Gulf by trade, energy, security, and proximity,” Al-Thani wrote in a column for Semafor. “At some point, the two sides will speak again. But when that happens, it will not be on the old terms.”
“The old relationship with Iran was difficult, but familiar. The next one, if it emerges at all, will be colder, stricter, and built on far less faith.”
“That is what this war changed. Not the map. Not the necessity of eventual contact. It changed the threshold of belief. Iran can still speak of a future with the Gulf. But after this war, the Gulf will ask for proof first,” Al-Thani concluded.
