US allies in Persian Gulf urge Trump to not bomb Iran

U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf are urging President Trump to not bomb Iran, and instead, pursue diplomacy.

The public and private lobbying by the countries comes as Trump is considering either attacking Iran or using diplomacy amid the Iranian government's violent crackdown on protesters, The New York Times reported.

On Wednesday, Trump said he had been “told that killing in Iran is stopping, has stopped.”

An anonymous source told The Times that the Sultanate of Oman, which often is a mediator between Iran and the U.S., has advised the Trump administration against striking Iran.

The spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry, Majed al-Ansari, said Tuesday that Qatar is also one of the countries attempting to defuse the situation peacefully.

“The big challenges in the region – and we are talking about internal and external challenges in different countries – require all of us to return to the negotiating table,” al-Ansari said.

Meanwhile, in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai has long been a key trading port with Iran.

Following Trump's announcement of a 25% tariff on U.S. trading partners that also trade with Iran, the UAE trade minister said that his country was still trying to determine how it would affect them.

“We are the second-largest trading partner with Iran, and it is one of the main providers and suppliers of many of our commodities, especially food products,” Thani al-Zeyoudi, the trade minister, said on Tuesday, the Emirati newspaper The National reported.