The Media Line: UAE Urges Iran Talks as US Deploys Warships and Tehran Signals Openness to Negotiations  

UAE Urges Iran Talks as US Deploys Warships and Tehran Signals Openness to Negotiations   

By The Media Line Staff  

As Iran and the US are slated to hold talks in Istanbul later in the week and the United States dispatches warships toward the region, a senior UAE official publicly called for renewed engagement with Tehran, urging dialogue over escalation.  

Anwar Gargash, advisor to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, said the Gulf state does not want to see another regional confrontation and stressed that Iran must reach an agreement that allows it to rebuild its economy. He said key matters, including the nuclear issue, must be addressed directly with Tehran. Gargash also spoke about postwar planning for Gaza, saying the UAE would not take on governance there but would continue to play what he described as a central regional role while working toward broader Middle East peace.  

In Tehran, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signaled readiness for discussions with Washington. Writing on X, he said that after requests from friendly regional governments to respond to an American offer for negotiations, he had instructed Iran’s foreign minister to prepare for talks grounded in respect and national interest, provided the atmosphere is free of threats and what he termed unreasonable expectations.  

With talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Friday in Turkey, President Trump warned that “bad things” would happen if there is no agreement, officials told Reuters. “We have ships heading to Iran right now, big ones — the biggest and the best — and we have talks going on with Iran and we’ll see how it all works out,” President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “If we can work something out, that would be great and if we can’t, probably bad things would happen.  

“I’d like to see a deal negotiated. I don’t know that that’s going to happen,” he added.  

During senior-level discussions, officials informed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that public outrage over last month’s crackdown — the deadliest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution — had grown to the extent that fear no longer served as a deterrent, four current officials familiar with the talks told Reuters.   

On Tuesday, a fire broke out at a shopping mall in Tehran under circumstances that were not immediately clarified, adding to an atmosphere of uncertainty inside the country.