DUBAI: A top security official in the United Arab Emirates warned Iran yesterday not to drag its Arab neighbors in the Gulf into any conflict with the West.
“Our strong relations with Iranians don’t mean that governments in the GCC will not react strongly to any work that will endanger social stability and economic prosperity,” Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said in remarks posted on the Gulf News website.
His remarks came one week after the same Dubai-based paper quoted a senior Iranian defector as alleging that Iran runs a network of agents in the six Gulf states that could be used to destabilize the region.
Iranian Defense Minister Mustafa Mohammad Najjar dismissed the claim as “lies and provocative remarks from enemy Western media.” And Kuwait’s defense minister yesterday called the defector’s reported comments “mere rumors.”
According to Gulf News, Dubai’s police chief acknowledged that Iran might have sleeping agents in the region.
“My advice to them (is to) keep them sleeping because it is not in the interests of Iranians in the region to destabilize host countries,” he was quoted as saying.
Tamim said Iran’s conflict with the United States over its controversial nuclear program should not involve the Gulf Cooperation Council states. “We are in favor of a peaceful resolution... This doesn’t mean that they can cut the life vein of the region just because they can’t confront the US directly,” he said.
He was referring to Iran’s warnings that it will retaliate militarily or close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil route, if it comes under US attack.
Adel Al-Assadi, who was Iran’s consul general in Dubai before defecting in 2001, said last week that Iranian Revolutionary Guards began setting up sleeper cells in the GCC states after the 1979 revolution.
Kuwait’s defense minister, also in remarks published yesterday, dismissed as “mere rumors” the claim that spies from neighboring countries are operating in the emirate. He did not specifically name Iran.
“Reports about the presence of spy networks from neighboring countries in Kuwait are mere rumors,” Al-Seyassah newspaper reported Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah as saying. “We have good relations with our neighbors.”
