In an interview with CNBC on Friday, the Qatari foreign minister said there is a need for a regional security framework between Iran and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

“We believe it’s important that we have the leadership of such a dialogue and not leave it for other countries,” he said. “We appreciate and respect (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council) to be part of this, to be (a) supporter for this, but the core of this dialogue should be handled by the GCC and Iran.”

Al Thani also said that Qatar is ready to facilitate talks between Iran and the U.S.

(The) U.S. is a strategic ally for Qatar, and we want to maintain this strategic alliance,” he said. On the other hand, Iran is “our next-door neighbor, and we want to see stability over there.”

He said Qatar would be willing to facilitate discussions if asked.

“Right now, we are just conveying the message for both parties to … be more positive and more constructive in engaging with each other, and to reach a deal as soon as possible,” he said.

Al Thani has been calling for dialogue between Iran and the GCC for a while. In late May, he expressed support for a revival of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. He told Al Arabiya at that time that his country urges both Iran and the U.S. to return to the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“Our relationship with the U.S. government is moving in the direction of a strategic partnership. We urge Washington and Tehran to return to the JCPOA and assist in holding the negotiations,” he said, according to ISNA.

He added, “The member states of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) must play a role in the regional security equation with Iran, and this will not be achieved except through regional talks.”

In early May, the Qatari foreign minister said that in separate contacts with the U.S. and Iranian governments, Doha is urging both sides to take an effective approach to advancing negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

“We have strong and strategic relations with Washington and good relations with Iran, and we do not want tensions to increase, which will have a negative impact on Qatar and the region,” Al-Thani said.

He said that there were ongoing contacts with the United States and Iran, and Qatar encourages them to participate in the negotiations effectively.

Qatar also called for a dialogue between Iran and Saudi Arabia, calling such a dialogue a constructive step toward regional stability.

“We welcome any dialogue or efforts and a positive spirit related to relations between Iran and the [Persian] Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, and we support such efforts and believe that dialogue is a constructive step toward the stability of the region,” the chief Qatari diplomat said in an interview with Al Jazeera in early May.

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Marking the 53rd anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem (al-Quds) and the Gaza Strip, Hamas said some Arab and Islamic countries are normalizing ties with Israel while it is planning to annex the occupied West Bank.

“The anniversary of the Arab setback comes this year amidst a new setback as (some) Arab and Islamic states are running to normalize relations with the Israeli enemy,” a statement by Hamas said, adding that these measures boost Israel’s stability and desire to extend sovereignty over the Palestinian lands, the Middle East Monitor reported.

Hamas reiterated that reinforcing resistance is the “only way to wipe out the consequences of the setback,” stressing that the attempts to undermine resistance are “completely unacceptable”.

The statement also said that Palestinian unity based on the national principles and resistance is the real way to rein in the Israeli aggression.

Hamas emphasized that the fate of the Israeli annexation plan will be defeated by the Palestinian freedom fighters.

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“Israel intends in the coming years to conclude normalization and peace agreements with a number of Arab states,” he said Sunday night, recalling, in particular, his trip to Oman, a country with which Israel has no formal diplomatic relations.

Netanyahu met Oman’s Sultan Qaboos in Muscat in October 2018. The controversial visit was kept secret until after the Israeli premier had returned to the occupied territories.

The Israeli premier made the new remarks at a Likud event in Tel Aviv in which he touted what he characterized as his past diplomatic achievements and pledged more successes.

Jordan and Egypt are the only two Arab states that have diplomatic ties with Israel. However, reports have indicated that several of them, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have had secret relations with Tel Aviv.

Israel and the Persian Gulf Arab regimes have dramatically increased their contacts since June 2018, when Bahrain hosted a US-led conference where the “economic” part of President Donald Trump’s “peace” plan for the Middle East was unveiled.

The Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, visited the UAE capital city of Abu Dhabi in June last year for a UN environmental conference, where he discussed cooperation against Iran, as well as economic and transport collaboration.

On October 26 last year, the Israeli culture and sports minister, Miri Regev, traveled to the UAE to accompany Israel’s judo team at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam 2018. Her visit marked the first of its kind by an Israeli minister to a Persian Gulf littoral state.

Israel will also take part in the Expo 2020 world fair in Dubai next year.

The recent moves towards normalization of ties have angered Palestinians, who see the normalization attempts as an attempt to liquidate their cause.

Netanyahu on Sunday stressed that simultaneous with reaching peace deals with Arab countries, he would annex West Bank settlements with US support.

Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War, in a move never recognized by the international community.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.

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It also stressed that the PMU has stood by Iraqi armed forces “to defend our holy land and made great sacrifices to liberate the cities of Iraq, and to defeat Daesh terrorist gangs.”

The Israeli regime is widely known to be behind a wave of air raids on positions of Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi in recent weeks. Reports say those air raids had the support of the Saudi regime and were launched from the areas controlled by US-backed Kurdish militants in the northern parts of neighboring Syria.

In the latest such attack on the weekend, Israeli drones struck a PMU convoy near the Iraqi town of al-Qa’im close to the Syrian border, killing a commander and severely wounding a fighter.

This came a day after Israel carried out strikes near the Syrian capital, Damascus, claiming that the air raids were “able to thwart an Iranian attempt … to conduct an attack on Israeli targets … using killer drones.”

Syria, however, said that its air defenses had managed to detect hostile targets approaching from the occupied Golan Heights towards Damascus and destroyed most of the Israeli rockets before they could reach their destinations.

Just hours later in early Sunday, two explosives-laden Israeli drones violated Lebanese airspace on a bombing mission and crashed in the stronghold the Hezbollah resistance movement in the south of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. One of the drones blew up near the ground, causing some damage to Hezbollah’s media office.

The top Bahraini diplomat took to Twitter on Monday to express his support for the Israeli attacks, labeling them an act of “self-defense.”

“Iran is the one who has declared a war on us, with its (Islamic) Revolution Guards Corps, its Lebanese party, its Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, its Houthi arm in Yemen and others,” Khalifa claimed. “So one who strikes and destroys the piles of their ammunition is not to blame. That is self-defense.”

The controversial comments were the latest public show of support for Tel Aviv from Manama, which has been trying to normalize ties with the oppressive regime, in what has been viewed by Palestine and its supporters as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause against Israel’s occupation.

Back in June, Khalifa took the lid off Bahrain’s longtime secret dealings with Israel by openly saying that Manama wants “peace” and “better” relations with the occupying entity.

Iran has been providing military advisory assistance to Syria, strengthening the hand of its national army on the battlefield against the terrorists, who have the support of the US, Israel and their allies, including Persian Gulf Arab regimes.

The Syrian military has also the support of Russia and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement in its counter-terrorism operations.

Tehran offered similar assistance to Iraq and set the stage for the neighboring nation to win its three-year-long campaign against Daesh, the world’s most notorious terror outfit, in late 2017.

Bahrain — a vassal state of Saudi Arabia — is party to a Riyadh-led coalition waging a bloody military campaign against Yemen with the aim of reinstalling a Saudi-friendly puppet regime. Manama and its allies claim Iran provides arms to the Houthi Ansarullah movement, which both runs Yemen and defends its nation, a claim Tehran has repeatedly rejected.

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Saudi Arabia and some other Arab countries have bought arms worth tens of billions of dollars from the United States, he said, adding, “therefore, US policy is the one that has been always in place, i.e. seeking their own economic aims, but this has been more prominent in the Trump era.”

In his presidential election, US President Donald Trump had described Arab countries as ‘milking cows’ and that he would take advantage of their resources, the Iranian MP added.

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According to his official website, Ayatollah Khamenei said that the Quran is the book that leads mankind to worldly and heavenly bliss and held “The Quran is the book of prosperity and bliss in this world and the hereafter, provided that we act based on its principles. The Quran says, “stern to the disbelievers;” [Quran; 48:29]. Some Muslims forget that, like those Muslim countries who compromise with the U.S. and the Zionists, to shed the blood of Palestinians and violate their rights. They abandoned being “stern to the disbelievers” [Quran; 48:29] and they became servants of the disbelievers. Today, the officials of many Muslim states represent examples of that.”

He criticized Muslim states that engage in wars against their Muslim brethren asserting, “Another group has forgotten the principle of “compassionate among themselves” [Quran; 48:29]. They reject and excommunicate [takfir] the believers in Allah, the Quran, and the Ka’ba. When “compassionate among themselves” is abandoned, internal wars may arise. You see the current situation in Yemen and Syria; Yemen has been bombarded for 4 years now. Those who bombard Yemen are Muslims in appearance, but they do not show mercy to Muslims.”

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution praised those who gave their lives for the sake of Allah as role models for selfless volunteering, saying, “The Martyrs have taught us many lessons. The initiative taken for providing relief for the victims of the recent floods in Iran is what the martyrs have taught us. The great movement of the people from different regions towards the flood-hit areas is an extraordinary phenomenon. The people and youth go there and along with the young local people contribute to the relief operation using their physical strength, facilities, and money.”

Ayatollah Khamenei described Iranian nation’s devotion to volunteer in helping the flood victims as a lesson learned by the martyrs of the 8-year Sacred Defense, adding, “The great movement which is taking place is rare in the world; that the people take the initiative to assist those in need is a lesson from our martyrs. During the 1980s and the Sacred Defense also the young individuals took to the fields with the same enthusiasm and sense of self-sacrifice.”

He described enemies’ hostile measures against the Islamic Republic as futile and counterproductive, saying, “What the enemies do against Iran today are their last resorts of enmity. The sterner they become against us, the stronger our willpower will become; the more they intensify their measures against us, the more powerful we will become; the more furious they become at our commitment to Quranic teachings, the more our reliance and commitment to the Quran will become. Reliance on and sticking to the Quran will bring us bliss, strength, and dignity.”

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Speaking in an interview with U.S. channel NewsMax TV on Thursday, Pompeo said, “We made connections between [Israel and Arab countries] to form a coalition in the Middle East that will preserve U.S. security”.

He criticized the Obama administration for its decision to adopt Iran “as its partner in the region… but, we completely changed it.”

Pompeo also confirmed Trump’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, stressing that the U.S. plans to continue confronting Iran.

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