The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Shaikh Abdullah bin Sayed An-Nahyan, added to the complaints last week.
“I am trying to choose my words carefully,” he told reporters. “I don’t want to act like some Iranian officials who throw their words around in an abrasive and indecent manner,” he said quite bitingly.
“Iran should reconsider its policies in the region,” he said. “It should respect the unity and sovereignty of the Gulf countries.… All I wish for is that Iran view its neighbors with responsibility and respect.”
Iran continues to talk about the uprisings in Arab countries, but it confines its remarks almost entirely to Bahrain. It accuses Bahrain and its neighbors of engaging in a “massacre” of Bahraini Shiites, 20 of whom have died in two months of protests. Iran says next to nothing about Syria, where the death is now believed to exceed 200.
Bahraini Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa announced that Bahrain has sent a letter to the United Nations with a “full attachment on the threats and all the evidence we have against Iran and Hezbollah.”
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Shaikh Mohammad Sabah as-Salem Al-Sabah complained that the Arab states around the Persian Gulf “have issued many goodwill signals toward Iran.… We have been met by increased Iranian interference in our internal affairs. It seems Iran is looking at us as satellite states and not independent and sovereign countries. We want Iran to respect the national sovereignty of our countries.”