GCC chief urges Iran to build trust, not destabilize Mideast
Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi urged Iran to take to build trust with its neighbors and stop policies that undermine stability in the Middle East.
Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi urged Iran to take to build trust with its neighbors and stop policies that undermine stability in the Middle East.
“Nobody in the GCC wants Iran to go down the drain,” Albudaiwi said at a panel titled Iran and the Changing Regional Security Environment during the Doha Forum 2025.
“We are here to talk about the present and the future – how to make our region as peaceful, as stable, as prosperous as possible along with our brothers and sisters in Iran.”
He said the GCC seeks a cooperative relationship with Iran based on dialogue, respect for the UN Charter, and non-interference in regional affairs. “We need to take the right steps towards trust-building measures,” he said.
“But there are really serious measures that we would like our brothers in Iran to take. The policies that Iran sometimes take really shake the stability of the region.”
Albudaiwi cited Iran’s support for Yemen’s Houthi group as an example of destabilizing activity and said Arab states astride the Persian Gulf had already taken steps toward de-escalation, including Saudi Arabia’s 2023 normalization agreement with Tehran and mediation efforts by Oman.
“We have put the right steps toward Iran,” he said. “What the GCC wants from Iran is simple and basic – like any normal neighborhood.”
He described Iran as part of the region’s shared culture and history but said progress required concrete change. “Iran is our neighbor, our history, our culture,” Albudaiwi said. “We have so much to share with Iran. It’s the present and the future that we should concentrate on.”
Meanwhile former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran remains resilient despite recent challenges, stressing that the country has endured hardship throughout its history.
“We’ve had our ups, and certainly today is not one of our ups,” Zarif said at the Doha Forum. “Iran has gone through storms for almost seven millennia – we’ve been invaded, we’ve been occupied, but we never went down the drain. We are still standing up and we will continue to stand up.”
