UAE says Iran must halt attacks on neighbours to allow diplomacy

By Maha El Dahan

DUBAI, March 13 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will bring about a diplomatic conclusion to the war with Iran “in his time”, and Tehran must halt attacks on its neighbours before they can mediate, one of the UAE’s top diplomats said in an interview on Friday.

Lana Nusseibeh, a former UAE ambassador to the United Nations who now holds the rank of minister of state in the Gulf country’s foreign ministry, expressed confidence that the war would end in a negotiated settlement. But she said neighbours were shocked that Iran had unleashed attacks on them.

“Ultimately, it will be a diplomatic solution, but there needs to be that tipping point moment, and I think that president Trump will lead us all to that moment in his time,” Nusseibeh said in an interview.

Asked about efforts to mediate, she said Iran must halt its attacks first: “It is difficult to talk about mediation when under attack… Mediation can only happen when the guns go silent.”

She said Iranian officials had given her no indication the UAE was a target when she visited Tehran for talks aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis two weeks before it erupted into conflict. That lack of warning made Iran’s attacks on the UAE “so shocking and so egregious”.

Iran has said its strikes are aimed at the U.S. presence in the region. The UAE, along with other Gulf countries, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, hosts U.S. military facilities.

Drones or missiles have been fired at UAE civilian infrastructure including Dubai airport, landmark hotels and the financial hub.

NO EASY RETURN TO PRE-WAR RELATIONSHIP WITH IRAN

Nusseibeh said the UAE was in constant touch with the Trump administration and praised it as a strong strategic partner.

She offered no criticism of the U.S. or Israel for launching the attack on Iran, and said their military campaign should be viewed separately to what she called Iran’s “egregious illegal and unlawful attacks on the Gulf countries and Jordan”.

It would be hard to restore relations with Iran to the pre-war status quo “as you look around at the destruction and the chaos that Iran has caused in the region,” she said.

She said Iran was trying to attack the UAE’s economic model, which had attracted 700,000 Iranians to live there, but that the Iranian strikes had shown that “our economy is strong and robust and resilient”.

“People are back at work, our airports are open, flights are taking off. It’s the Iranian economy that was already strangled by sanctions and economic pressure that is going into freefall. It’s their currency that’s going into freefall,” she said.

(Reporting by Maha El DahanWriting by Nayera Abdallah and Angus MacDowallEditing by Peter Graff)