Pompeo to Saudi Arabia, UAE: Iran on Top of Talks 

By Staff, Agencies 

As the region continues to boil amid unprecedented US- Iranian tension, US Secretary of State Pompeo announced on Sunday he would be flying to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to hold "crisis talks" on Iran with regional partners. 

"We'll be talking with them about how to make sure that we are all strategically aligned and how we can build out a global coalition" on Iran, he said, calling them "great allies in the challenge that Iran presents."

Pompeo is due in India on Tuesday, and he will stop in the two Gulf countries on his way to Delhi. 

"We're prepared to negotiate with no preconditions," Pompeo said, for his part. "They know precisely where to find us," Pompeo told reporters before boarding his plane.

The announcement is the latest in Western diplomatic moves aiming to both attempt to resolve the situation in the gulf and pressure the Iranian government into giving ground. 

The UK minister for the middle-east, Andrew Murrison, made a visit to Tehran on Sunday. 

Iranian foreign ministry officials termed the talks as "repetitive." Murrison went through the "usual talking points", said Kamal Kharazi, the head of the Strategic Council of Foreign Relations at Iran's foreign ministry.

National Security Adviser John Bolton, who Trump himself has labeled a "hawk", is meanwhile in the apartheid “Israeli” entity for tripartite security talks with Russia.