PARIS: France’s foreign minister said on Saturday that she had told her Iranian counterpart that the risk of a Middle East regional conflagration had never been greater and that Tehran and its proxies needed to end their destabilising activities.
“Iran and its associates must immediately stop their destabilising actions,” Catherine Colonna said on social media platform X after speaking with Hossein Amirabdollahian.
“No one would gain from escalation.”
Amirabdollahian said the only way to quell conflict was to resolve the root causes, Iran’s state media reported.
“An effective step in ending violence in the region would be to stop the crimes of the Zionist regime (Israel) and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as taking action to stop the killing of civilians, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid and prevent forced migration,” the minister added.
France and Iran discuss risks to Mideast stability
https://arab.news/wf6d6
France and Iran discuss risks to Mideast stability
- France's Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs told her Iranian counterpart that "Iran and its affiliates" must stop "destabilising acts" that could spark a broader conflict in the Middle East amid the war in Gaza
Saudi Arabia increasingly concerned by Israel’s impact on regional instability: Experts
- Middle East Institute hosts panel discussion attended by Arab News
CHICAGO: Experts on Wednesday noted Saudi Arabia’s increased concern over Israel’s regional conduct during a panel discussion hosted by the Middle East Institute and attended by Arab News.
F. Gregory Gause III, professor emeritus of international affairs at the Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University, said Israel rather than Iran has become the more immediate worry for the Kingdom.
“I think there’s a real worry that post-Oct. 7 it’s the Israelis, not the Iranians, who might be the fomenters of instability in Syria, in Lebanon, even with the attack on Doha,” he said.
Saudi Arabia’s priority is achieving “stability in the region,” and it believes that closer relations with the US can achieve that, he added.
Former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney said the Kingdom’s concerns have pushed it to seek closer ties to the US through President Donald Trump, who has been more responsive than his predecessor Joe Biden.
During his recent visit to Washington, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “got everything he wanted” for Saudi Arabia’s interests, Ratney said, adding that his priority is to make the Kingdom a lynchpin of regional stability.
The Saudis “are more positive about the relationship with the US than I think a lot of people here realize,” Ratney said. “They genuinely want their entire strategic outlook anchored in the US.”
Dr. Karen E. Young, a senior MEI fellow, said the Saudis have a growing concern for how regional instability impacts their economic advances under the Vision 2030 reform plan.
“Certainly there’s concern for the neighborhood, but in new ways and more geared toward what instability in the region means for economic development, tourism, logistics, trade and even connectivity, whether it’s in trading and selling electricity or perhaps in the transfer of data,” she added. “So they need calm, and that means on both sides of the Red Sea.”
