Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump told Gulf lead­ers on Wednes­day he ur­gent­ly wants “to make a deal” with Iran to wind down its nu­clear pro­gram but Tehran must end its sup­port of proxy groups through­out the re­gion as part of any po­ten­tial agree­ment.

Iran “must stop spon­sor­ing ter­ror, halt its bloody proxy wars and per­ma­nent­ly and ver­i­fi­ably cease pur­suit of nu­clear weapons,” Trump said in re­marks at a meet­ing of lead­ers from the Gulf Co­op­er­a­tion Coun­cil host­ed by Crown Prince Mo­hammed bin Salman in the Sau­di cap­i­tal. “They can­not have a nu­clear weapon.”

The U.S. and Iran have en­gaged in four rounds of talks since ear­ly last month fo­cused on Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram. Trump has re­peat­ed­ly said that he be­lieves bro­ker­ing a deal is pos­si­ble but that the win­dow is clos­ing.

The Re­pub­li­can pres­i­dent’s strong­ly word­ed push on Iran to cease sup­port of Hamas in Gaza, Hezbol­lah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen come as its proxy net­work has faced sig­nif­i­cant set­backs in the 19 months since Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack on Is­rael.

In Iran, For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi called Trump’s re­marks “de­ceit­ful” but did not di­rect­ly ad­dress the U.S. leader’s call on Iran to cease sup­port of proxy groups.

Lat­er, Trump, in an ex­change with re­porters aboard Air Force One, urged Iran “to make the right de­ci­sion” about its nu­clear pro­gramme “be­cause some­thing’s go­ing to hap­pen one way or the oth­er.”

“So we’ll ei­ther do it friend­ly or we’ll do it very un­friend­ly,” Trump warned. “And that won’t be pleas­ant.”

Trump said that he be­lieved the mo­ment was ripe “for a fu­ture free from the grip of Hezbol­lah ter­ror­ists.” Hezbol­lah is se­vere­ly weak­ened af­ter its war last year with Is­rael in which much of its top lead­er­ship was killed, and af­ter los­ing a key al­ly with the fall of for­mer Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Bashar As­sad, a con­duit for Iran to send arms.

Lift­ing sanc­tions on Syr­ia

Trump’s com­ments on Iran came af­ter he met Wednes­day with Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Ah­mad al-Sharaa, a face-to-face en­gage­ment with the one­time in­sur­gent leader who spent years im­pris­oned by U.S. forces af­ter be­ing cap­tured in Iraq.

Trump agreed to meet al-Sharaa at the end of his stay in Sau­di Ara­bia. He was head­ed next to Qatar, where he will be ho­n­oured with a state vis­it. His Mideast tour al­so will take him to the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

Al-Sharaa was named pres­i­dent of Syr­ia in Jan­u­ary, a month af­ter a stun­ning of­fen­sive by in­sur­gent groups led by al-Sharaa’s Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, stormed Dam­as­cus and end­ed the 54-year rule of the As­sad fam­i­ly.

Trump said he de­cid­ed to meet with al-Sharaa af­ter be­ing en­cour­aged to do so by Prince Mo­hammed and Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Re­cep Tayyip Er­do­gan. He al­so pledged to lift years-long sanc­tions on Syr­ia.

“The sanc­tions were re­al­ly crip­pling and very pow­er­ful,” Trump said. “It’s not go­ing to be easy any­way, so it gives them a good, strong chance” to re­build the coun­try, he added.

Prince Mo­hammed joined Trump and al-Sharaa for the meet­ing, which last­ed 33 min­utes. Er­do­gan al­so took part in the talks via video con­fer­ence.

The prince said Trump’s de­ci­sion to en­gage with al-Sharaa and lift the sanc­tions will “al­le­vi­ate the suf­fer­ing of the Syr­i­an peo­ple” and spur a “new chap­ter” for the na­tion.

For­mer­ly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mo­hammed al-Golani, al-Sharaa joined the ranks of al-Qai­da in­sur­gents bat­tling U.S. forces in Iraq af­ter the U.S.-led in­va­sion. He still faces a war­rant for his ar­rest on ter­ror­ism charges in Iraq. The U.S. once of­fered $10 mil­lion for in­for­ma­tion about his where­abouts be­cause of his links to al-Qai­da.

Al-Sharaa re­turned to his home coun­try of Syr­ia af­ter the con­flict be­gan in 2011 and led al-Qai­da’s branch called the Nus­ra Front. He changed the name of his group to Hay­at Tahrir al-Sham and cut links with al-Qai­da.

The sanc­tions go back to the rule of As­sad, who was oust­ed in De­cem­ber, and were in­tend­ed to in­flict ma­jor pain on his econ­o­my.

Both the Biden and Trump ad­min­is­tra­tions left the sanc­tions in place af­ter As­sad’s fall as they sought to take the mea­sure of al-Sharaa.

State vis­it to Qatar

Af­ter meet­ing with mem­bers of the GCC — which in­cludes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates — Trump head­ed to Qatar, the sec­ond stop in his Mideast tour.

Qatar, like the oth­er Gulf Arab states, is an au­to­crat­ic na­tion where po­lit­i­cal par­ties are banned and speech is tight­ly con­trolled. It is over­seen by its rul­ing emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Sheikh Tamim took pow­er in June 2013 when his fa­ther stepped down.

Qatar has al­so played a cen­tral role in pay-to-play-style scan­dals around the globe.

In Is­rael, au­thor­i­ties are in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­le­ga­tions that Qatar hired close ad­vis­ers to Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu to launch PR cam­paigns to im­prove the Gulf na­tion’s im­age among Is­raelis.

Two Eu­ro­pean Union law­mak­ers were ac­cused of tak­ing mon­ey from Do­ha in a scan­dal dubbed “Qatar-gate.” U.S. pros­e­cu­tors in 2020 ac­cused Qatar of brib­ing FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers to se­cure the tour­na­ment in the coun­try in 2022.

In 2024, RTX Corp., the de­fence con­trac­tor for­mer­ly known as Raytheon, agreed to pay more than $950 mil­lion to re­solve al­le­ga­tions that it de­fraud­ed the U.S. gov­ern­ment and paid bribes to se­cure busi­ness with Qatar. Do­ha al­ways has de­nied wrong­do­ing.

Qatar fol­lows an ul­tra­con­ser­v­a­tive form of Sun­ni Is­lam known as Wah­habism born out of Sau­di Ara­bia. How­ev­er, Qatar struck a dif­fer­ent tack in the Arab Spring by back­ing Is­lamists, in­clud­ing Egypt’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and for­mer Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Mo­hammed Mor­si, as well as those who rose up against As­sad.

Its sup­port of Is­lamists, in part, led to a years-long boy­cott of the coun­try by Bahrain, Egypt, Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. That boy­cott on­ly end­ed as then-Pres­i­dent Joe Biden pre­pared to en­ter the White House in 2021.

Qatar al­so has served as a key me­di­a­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the mil­i­tant group Hamas as the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty pur­sues a cease­fire for the Is­rael-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Qatar al­so served as host of the ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the Unit­ed States and the Tal­iban that led to Amer­i­ca’s 2021 with­draw­al from Afghanistan.

Qatar is home to Al-Udeid Air Base, a sprawl­ing fa­cil­i­ty that hosts the for­ward head­quar­ters of the U.S. mil­i­tary’s Cen­tral Com­mand.

The oil-and-gas rich coun­try is al­so in the cen­tre of a con­tro­ver­sy over its of­fer to pro­vide Trump with the gift of a lux­u­ry Boe­ing 747-8 that the U.S. could use as Air Force One while new ver­sions of the plane are un­der con­struc­tion by Boe­ing.

The Qatari gov­ern­ment has said a fi­nal de­ci­sion hasn’t been made. But Trump has de­fend­ed the idea even as crit­ics ar­gue it would amount to a pres­i­dent ac­cept­ing an as­ton­ish­ing­ly valu­able gift from a for­eign gov­ern­ment.

Trump has in­di­cat­ed he would re­fur­bish the air­craft and it would lat­er be do­nat­ed to his post-White House pres­i­den­tial li­brary. He says he would not use the plane once he leaves of­fice.

___

AP writ­ers Suzan Fras­er in Ankara, Turkey, Tia Gold­en­berg in Tel Aviv and Nass­er Kari­mi in Tehran, Iran con­tributed.

RIYADH, Sau­di Ara­bia (AP) —