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RIYADH: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Oman Thursday urged Donald Trump not to launch airstrikes against Iran in a last-minute lobbying campaign prompted by fears that an attack by Washington would lead to a major and intractable conflict across the Middle East, foreign media reported.
The warnings of chaos from the longstanding US allies appear to have helped persuade Trump to hold off for the moment on a military assault. In the case of Saudi Arabia, its reticence led it to deny the US use of its airspace to mount any attacks.
Continuing discussions, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, conferred by phone with his counterparts from Iran, Oman and Turkiye on Thursday, the Guardian reported.
A senior Saudi official told AFP Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman led efforts to talk US President Donald Trump out of an attack on Iran. Another Gulf official also confirmed the discussions. The Gulf trio “led a long, frantic, diplomatic last-minute effort to convince President Trump to give Iran a chance to show good intention”, the Saudi official said on condition of anonymity.
The Gulf efforts aimed to “avoid an uncontrollable situation in the region”, the Saudi official said. “We told Washington that an attack on Iran would open the way for a series of grave blowbacks in the region,” the official added. “It was a sleepless night to defuse more bombs in the region... the communication is still underway to consolidate the gained trust and the current good spirit.” The second Gulf official said “the message conveyed to Iran has been that an attack on US facilities in the Gulf would have consequences on relations with countries in the region”.
Meanwhile, US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican who has pushed for US military intervention in Iran, has said recent reports that Trump does not seek to attack Iran are “wildly inaccurate”. In a post on X dismissing such reports, Graham said, “The circumstances around the necessary, decisive action to be taken against the evil Iranian regime have nothing to do with President Trump’s will or determination. Quite the opposite. Stay tuned.”
Two diplomatic sources told AFP on Thursday that the security posture at Qatar’s Al-Udeid Airbase had been lowered after a number of personnel had been told to leave on Wednesday over the regional tensions. One source said the threat level on the base had fallen and gradually “planes have started moving back to position pre-Wednesday”. The second source said some military and other staff were also returning.
Meanwhile, the White House said Thursday that Iran stopped 800 executions under pressure from President Donald Trump over its crackdown on a wave of protests, but US military action remains an option. “The president understands today that 800 executions that were scheduled and supposed to take place yesterday were halted,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “All options remain on the table for the president,” she said, adding that Trump had warned Tehran of “grave consequences” if the killing of demonstrators continued. Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi Thursday said there would not be any “hanging today or tomorrow,” despite earlier vows from Tehran to fast-track trials for protesters.
In an interview with US broadcaster Fox News, Araghchi insisted that 10 days of peaceful demonstrations over Iran’s economic hardships were followed by three days of violence orchestrated by Israel, and calm had been restored. “I can tell you, I’m confident that there is no plan for hanging,” Araghchi said.
Meanwhile, the US on Thursday imposed sanctions on five Iranian officials it accused of being behind the crackdown on protests and said it was tracking Iranian leaders’ funds being wired to international banks, as President Donald Trump keeps the pressure on Tehran.
The US Treasury Department in a statement said it imposed sanctions on the Secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security as well as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and law enforcement forces commanders, accusing them of being architects of the crackdown. The US also imposed sanctions on Fardis Prison, where the State Department said women had “endured cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a video on Thursday said Washington’s message to Iran’s leaders was clear: “US Treasury knows, that like rats on a sinking ship, you are frantically wiring funds stolen from Iranian families to banks and financial institutions around the world. Rest assured, we will track them and you.
“But there’s still time, if you choose to join us. As President Trump has said, stop the violence and stand with the people of Iran.”
“The United States stands firmly behind the Iranian people in their call for freedom and justice,” Bessent said. “Treasury will use every tool to target those behind the regime’s tyrannical oppression of human rights.” The Treasury also imposed sanctions on 18 people it accused of involvement in laundering the proceeds of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical sales to foreign markets as part of “shadow banking” networks of sanctioned Iranian financial institutions.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also said on Thursday the government was trying to address some of the economic problems that first spurred the protests, saying it intended to tackle issues of corruption and foreign exchange rates and that this would improve purchasing power for poorer people.
Meanwhile, President Trump told Reuters in that Iranian opposition figure Reza Pahlavi “seems very nice” but expressed uncertainty over whether Pahlavi would be able to muster support within Iran to eventually take over. Trump said it is possible the government in Tehran could fall due to the protests, but that in truth “any regime can fail”. “Whether or not it falls or not, it’s going to be an interesting period of time,” he said.
The president of the European Union’s executive arm says the 27-member bloc is looking to strengthen sanctions against Iran as ordinary Iranians continue their protests. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday following a meeting of the EU’s commissioners in Limassol, Cyprus that current sanctions against Iran are “weakening the regime.” Von der Leyen said that the EU is looking to sanction individual Iranians -- apart from those who belong to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard -- who “are responsible for the atrocities.”
Meanwhile, the G7 Foreign Ministers -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and the High Representative of the European Union – expressed grave concerned over the developments surrounding the ongoing protests in Iran. “We strongly oppose the intensification of the Iranian authorities’ brutal repression of the Iranian people, who have been bravely voicing legitimate aspirations for a better life, dignity and freedom, since the end of December 2025,” an official statement on EU website said. “We are deeply alarmed at the high level of reported deaths and injuries. We condemn the deliberate use of violence and the killing of protestors, arbitrary detention, and intimidation tactics by security forces against demonstrators.”
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