Pompeo Heads to Saudi Arabia amid US Efforts to De-Escalate Tensions with Iran

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Sunday that he was traveling to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to discuss the crisis with Iran as Washington called for international pressure on Tehran to de-escalate regional tensions.

Pompeo told reporters that he will hold talks in Jeddah “about how to make sure that we are all strategically aligned.”

He also spoke about building “a global coalition … that understands this challenge as it is prepared to push back against the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.”

But even as Pompeo delivered his tough talk, he echoed President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in saying the US is prepared to negotiate with Iran, without preconditions, in a bid to ease tensions.

Those tensions have been mounting since Trump last year withdrew the US from a global nuclear deal with Iran and began pressuring Tehran with economic sanctions. A fresh round of Iran sanctions is to be announced Monday in a bid to force the Iranian leadership into talks.

“We’re prepared to negotiate with no preconditions. They know precisely where to find us,” Pompeo told reporters before boarding his plane. “I am confident that at the very moment they are ready to engage with us we will be able to begin these conversations.”

On a visit to Kuwait, the US Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, said that the June 28-29 G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan would provide an opportunity to discuss addressing maritime threats in Gulf waters.

“This is a very urgent priority that nations around the world would come together and enhance maritime security … This is one of the most critical shipping lines and we cannot allow Iran to threaten the free flow of commerce, to threaten lives, to threaten maritime catastrophes,” Hook told reporters after talks with several Kuwaiti officials.

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would impose fresh sanctions on Iran but that he wanted to make a deal to bolster its flagging economy, an apparent move to defuse tensions following the shooting down of an unmanned US drone this week by Tehran.

On Thursday, an Iranian missile destroyed a US Global Hawk surveillance drone, an incident that Washington said happened in international airspace. Trump later said he had called off a military strike to retaliate because it could have killed 150 people.

Tehran repeated on Saturday that the drone was shot down over its territory and said it would respond firmly to any US threat.

In Iran, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, published a map on Twitter with detailed coordinates which he said showed the drone was flying over the country’s territorial waters.