Gulf Arab states wary of Iran nuclear conflict.

Attiyah: GCC states support peaceful efforts deployed to solve Iranian nuclear crisis.

DUBAI - The six Gulf Arab states whose leaders meet in Qatar on Monday for a two-day summit fear that Iran's nuclear crisis could spark a new regional conflict.

Tehran's nuclear programme is expected to be high on the agenda of the Doha summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council which groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The GCC states "support the peaceful efforts deployed to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis, because any escalation would only complicate the situation," GCC Secretary General Abdelrahman al-Attiyah said.

"I solemnly invite all parties, including Iran, to use the language of reason and dialogue, away from confrontation and escalation," he said of the standoff with the international community over Tehran's programme of uranium enrichment.

The United States suspects Iran is using its nuclear programme to develop a nuclear bomb covertly. Despite Iranian denials, the United States and its allies are pressing for stronger UN sanctions against Tehran.
Gulf Arab leaders -- staunch US allies -- tend to avoid voicing their concerns about Iranian intentions in public.

But in an interview last month with British newspapers, Bahrain's Crown Prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, for the first time accused the Islamic republic of seeking to acquire nuclear arms.

Fearing a new armed conflict after the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), the first Gulf War in 1991 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the GCC has proposed an internationally controlled consortium to supply enriched uranium to Middle Eastern countries.

This suggestion, greeted coldly by Tehran, is "the best guarantee to prevent having atomic arms in the region," said Riad Kahwaji, director of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

"When a country like Iran has the liberty to enrich uranium, there is a danger that this country will equip itself with atomic weapons," he said.

He said that Arab countries, including GCC members, which have announced their intention to start civilian nuclear programmes cannot counterbalance Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"Iran has a real nuclear programme which is running and developing, while Arab states simply intend to acquire reactors to produce nuclear energy" without mastering the expertise needed to develop an atomic bomb, he added.

The GCC nuclear programme is the subject of a feasibility study which will be discussed at Doha.

It would provide Gulf monarchies with a common central plant which would be "built in a secured area" and operational by 2025, according to recent remarks by the UAE undersecretary for energy, Ali bin Abdullah al-Owais.

"The Gulf monarchies, which have increased the number of their joint military meetings, are seriously worried about the Iranian crisis sliding into an armed conflict," Kahwaji said.

"These monarchies will be obliged to intervene in such conflict" if their territory close to Iran was hit, he added.
On Friday, Iran's top atomic negotiator Saeed Jalili said Tehran will not curb its nuclear plans under pressure from a new UN resolution.

"They have adopted three resolutions and haven't achieved anything, and Iran has in the meantime enjoyed significant technological success," he said after talks in London with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.