Pompeo on Middle East tour to counter Iran, boost Netanyahu

KUWAIT CITY - Top US diplomat Mike Pompeo sought Wednesday to bolster a united front against Iran during a Middle East tour that will include talks with key ally Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israeli elections.

The US secretary of state kicked off his regional tour in Kuwait where he met Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah on the first stop of a trip that will also take him to Israel and Lebanon.

Pompeo told reporters on the flight from the United States that he would discuss "strategic dialogue" and the need to combat "the threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran" with leaders in the region.

After Kuwait Pompeo will fly to Israel where an election campaign is in its final weeks with Netanyahu locked in a close battle with centrist rivals.

Pompeo is also pushing for a greater role for the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), a US-sponsored Arab NATO aimed at uniting Washington's Arab allies against Tehran.

"We all have the same set of threats, threats from Al-Qaeda, from (the Islamic State group), threats from the Islamic Republic of Iran," Pompeo said at a joint press conference with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khaled Al-Sabah.

Pompeo urged Qatar and Saudi Arabia, both members of MESA, to bury the hatchet in a political dispute over regional policy that has split the two powerful Gulf states.

"It's not in the best interest of the region," Pompeo said of the Saudi-Qatari rift. "It's not in the best interest of the world."

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their allies cut all ties with Doha in 2017, accusing Qatar of bankrolling Islamist fundamentalists and cosying up to Iran.

Qatar denies the allegations and says the rival states aim to incite regime change in Doha.

'Important relationship'

While Washington insists it is not interfering in Israeli politics, his visit is seen as a show of support for Netanyahu, who is struggling to keep his grip on power as he faces allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust ahead of the April 9 polls.

"Leaders will change in both countries over time," Pompeo said before landing in Kuwait. That relationship matters no matter who the leaders are."

Israel is one of the most outspoken members of the anti-Iranian grouping assembled by the US, and Iran is sure to be a central focus of Pompeo's talks in Jerusalem.

No meetings with Netanyahu's opponents are scheduled, and the secretary of state will not meet with representatives of the Palestinian Authority.

"They'd have to want to talk to us," Pompeo said of the Palestinian officials.

"That'd be a good start."

Washington has taken a series of steps deemed so "hostile" by the Palestinian Authority that it now refuses any contact with the US administration. The moves include cutting most of the US aid to the Palestinians.

President Donald Trump's decision in December 2017 to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israeli delighted Netanyahu's government.

But it enraged Palestinians, who want to make the eastern, mainly Palestinian part of the city the capital of their future state.

Pompeo's two-day visit to Jerusalem also includes a symbolic stop at the new US embassy, which was transferred from Tel Aviv on Trump's orders last year.

Netanyahu will travel to Washington in the last week of March for the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an event sponsored by the influential lobbying group that draws thousands each year.

While a meeting has not been officially confirmed, the Israeli premier hopes to use the opportunity of his Washington visit to meet with Trump.

Regional considerations

The April 9 vote in Israel will also start the countdown for the presentation, expected before the summer, of the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan that a small, strongly pro-Israel White House team has been quietly preparing under the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Kuwait's foreign minister said on Wednesday that the long-awaited US peace proposal should be acceptable to all stakeholders and factor in regional considerations.

Trump's special adviser Kushner visited several Gulf Arab states last month - but not Kuwait - to seek support from Arab leaders on the economic portion of the proposal that Trump is expected to unveil in the coming months.

Kushner has given a broad outline of the plan, saying it would address final-status issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including establishing borders.

"We hope the plan will take into account the situation in the region and all the relevant parties," Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah told a joint news conference with Pompeo.

"We believe the strong relationship between the United States and several countries will lead to an acceptable resolution to all parties and to reaching a political solution that has been long waited for."

Kuwait currently holds a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, where it has championed the Palestinian cause.

The foreign minister of Kuwait said he had also discussed with Pompeo the situations in Syria, Iran, Iraq and Yemen as well as the Gulf dispute that has fractured the Gulf Arab bloc.

"We are all working to find a solution. It's not in the best interest of the region, not in the best interest of the world. We need Gulf countries all working together on the complex set of challenges that face each of them," Pompeo said.

Sheikh Sabah said "there is no option" other than for the dispute to be resolved.

The United States, an ally of the six-nation Gulf bloc, has said that regional unity is essential for a planned Middle East Strategic Alliance that would serve as a bulwark against Iran.

Qatar is home to a major US airbase and Kuwait also hosts US troops. Pompeo said his talks on Wednesday also focused on enhancing defence and cybersecurity cooperation with Kuwait.

Peace plan countdown

A shift in semantics and policy has marked the Trump term, particularly related to the Middle East.

The US has ceased to refer to Syria's Golan Heights as "Israeli-occupied" and instead calls the territory "controlled" by Israel -- a change seen by some as a prelude to US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau.

"That language reflects the facts as we understand them," Pompeo said.

"This was a factual statement about how we observe the situation.

"And we think it's very accurate, and we stand behind it."

During Friday's Beirut leg of his trip, Pompeo will focus on the Hezbollah movement, which the US considers a pro-Iranian "terrorist" group even though it is represented in the coalition government of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, himself a US ally.