Read the daily news to learn English

Trump says US will ‘never forget’ lack of Nato help on Iran ahead of Rutte speech - Europe live

Over in Helsinki, the leaders are now sitting down to start their working session on northern European security and Ukraine. Finland’s Stubb says the discussions will be about the East, with Ukraine and Russia, but also the Arctic, the North Atlantic, and the Baltic. Britain’s Starmer says that while the attention of the world has shifted to the Middle East, “the threat from Russia in the north and in the east has not gone away; in fact, in my view, that threat has grown.” He also notes that the crisis in the Middle East has “highlighted Ukraine’s expertise in modern warfare,” including on defences against Iranian drones. He pays tribute to the “extraordinary fortitude” of the Ukrainian people as they face “Putin’s abhorrent attacks over the winter.” He says that Europe’s support for Ukraine is “unshakeable.”

Two drone strikes on civilian targets kill 28 people in Sudan

At least 28 civilians have been killed in two separate drone strikes in Sudan, according to health workers, as the country’s brutal civil war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces approaches its fourth year. A strike hit a market in the town of Saraf Omra in North Darfur state on Wednesday, killing “22 people, including an infant, and injuring 17 more”, a health worker at the local clinic told AFP. “The drone hit a parked oil truck, which caught fire along with part of the market,” said Hamid Suleiman, a vendor at the market, which serves a remote area close to the border with Chad. It was not immediately clear which side sent the drone. Another strike hit a truck carrying civilians on a highway in an army-controlled area of North Kordofan, about 500 miles east of Darfur. The road, which runs east to west through the state capital, El Obeid, and onwards to Darfur, has been the subject of numerous drone attacks from the army and the RSF. “Six bodies arrived at the hospital yesterday, three of them charred, in addition to 10 wounded,” a source at the hospital in the town of El Rahad told AFP, blaming the RSF for the attack. Civil war broke out in Sudan’s capital Khartoum on 15 April 2023, when a power struggle between the army and RSF spiralled into open conflict. Since then, more than 11.6 million people have been displaced, out of a population of about 51 million, in what aid organisations have described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Huge swathes of the country are at risk of famine. Estimates of the number of people killed in the civil war range from tens of thousands to more than 400,000. Over 10,000 people are believed to have been massacred by the RSF in El Fasher over two days in October 2025. Meanwhile, the number of civilians killed in drone strikes has increased this year, according to the UN, particularly in the Kordofan region. More than 500 were killed by drones between 1 January and 15 March, Marta Hurtado, the spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, said earlier this week. On 20 March, a drone strike on a hospital in East Darfur killed 64 people and wounded 89, according to the World Health Organization. The Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese group that documents civil war atrocities, said it was an army drone. Agence France-Presse contributed to this story.

Middle East crisis live: Trump criticises Nato allies as US and Iran issue conflicting statements on ceasefire talks

In an all caps Truth Social post, Donald Trump has railed against Nato allies for doing “absolutely nothing” to help the US in its military campaign against Iran. He wrote: NATO NATIONS HAVE DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO HELP WITH THE LUNATIC NATION, NOW MILITARILY DECIMATED, OF IRAN. THE U.S.A. NEEDS NOTHING FROM NATO, BUT “NEVER FORGET” THIS VERY IMPORTANT POINT IN TIME!

Maduro to again appear in New York federal court in ‘narco-terrorism’ case

The deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro is again scheduled to appear in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday for his “narco-terrorism” case after his capture by US military forces earlier this year. US special forces captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on 3 January in a controversial pre-dawn raid during an assault on Caracas that reportedly killed 100 people. Charging papers allege that Maduro spearheaded a “corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking”. Their capture followed months of US pressure against Maduro, such as assaults on purported “narco boats”. These boat strikes resulted in more than 100 deaths and some legal experts have challenged not only the legality of these attacks, but whether they are equivalent to war crimes. Maduro and Flores both pleaded not guilty during their 5 January arraignment. Maduro’s court appearance comes several weeks after he pushed for dismissal of his case by alleging that US officials were violating the fallen head of state’s “constitutional right to counsel of his choice”. They claimed that authorities were unlawfully prohibiting the Venezuelan government from paying for his defense. The US treasury department’s office of foreign assets control (Ofac) on 9 January granted Maduro a waiver to accept money from Venezuela’s government – which is under sanction – for his legal fees. Just three hours later, however, Ofac “reversed course”, Maduro’s lawyers said. “As a result, Mr Maduro, who lacks his own funds to retain counsel, is being deprived of his constitutional right to counsel of his choice,” Maduro’s lawyers said in court papers filed on 26 February. “If OFAC’s interference with Mr Maduro’s ability to fund his defense persists, undersigned counsel cannot remain in the case, nor can Mr Maduro be represented by any other retained counsel,” his lawyers wrote. “Not only would the Court need to appoint counsel and foist the cost of Mr Maduro’s defense on the United States taxpayers, despite the willingness and obligation of the government of Venezuela to pay Mr Maduro’s defense costs, but also any verdict against Mr Maduro would be constitutionally suspect.” Ofac contends that it never meant to greenlight Venezuela’s funding of Maduro’s defense, saying in 13 March court papers: “The inclusion in these licenses of an authorization to use funds paid by the Government of Venezuela was an administrative error.” “Once Ofac’s Licensing Division became aware of the error in the Maduro License, Ofacamended this license to align with Ofac’s licensing policy and with US foreign policy objectives,” an agency official said. Manhattan federal prosecutors are fighting Maduro’s push for dismissal. They claimed in a 13 March filing that while Ofac would typically allow a defendant such as Maduro to use his own money for legal fees, it would be “highly unusual” for a sanctioned government to receive such a waiver.

‘A toxic punch’: fears Russia’s war is pushing the Black Sea and its dolphins past tipping point

In the embattled harbours of Odesa, a scientific vessel lists in its mooring. No one has been able to take a look at the damage to the Boris Alexander from Russian drones and shelling that have hit the port city over the past four years of war in Ukraine. It is too dangerous, just as no one has been able to fully monitor the damage the war is doing to the Black Sea. “We can only wait,” says Dr Jaroslav Slobodnik, the director of the Environmental Institute, headquartered in the Slovak Republic. “The biodiversity landscape is completely altered. A number of species seem to have disappeared, but we need more data. Data which the war makes it impossible to collect.” Three species of dolphins were living in the Black Sea before the war. Some of the carcasses of poisoned dolphins that have been washing up with regularity along Ukraine’s 1,729-mile-long (2,782km) coastline since the start of the conflict are spotted and counted. About 125 were recorded in the first year of the Russian invasion, and last year scientists documented 49 bodies. Aside from the oil spills and munitions, accoustic disturbance from military sonar is also thought to be a critical threat to cetaceans, leading to dolphin strandings and death. Sonar use by both ships and submarines is likely to be especially intense around the Kerch Bridge and Russian-controlled areas. But properly monitoring the mammals, the bellwether of the Black Sea’s health, or to investigate what is killing them, is difficult when there is a war raging. There are fewer people available to count and fewer reports called in by a war-weary Ukrainian population, in addition to the no man’s land of the Crimean peninsula, occupied by Russian forces. “The dolphins are the sentinels of ecology of the sea, because they are at the top of the food chain,” says Slobodnik. The impact of the “thousands and thousands” of bombs, oil leaks and ships that have been sunk can only be guessed at. “All we can say is that the Black Sea is at a tipping point, perhaps past it, because of this war.” It has been almost three years since the Kakhovka dam disaster in June 2023, when Russian forces were believed to be behind the sabotage of the structure on the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine. The collapse of the dam killed dozens of people and flooded fields and homes over an area of about 230 sq miles (600 sq km), as well as pouring significant pollutants and heavy metals along the Dnipro into the Black Sea and depositing toxic waste and rotting animal carcasses into the river delta’s sediment. It was, says Slobodnik, “a toxic punch to the face of the Black Sea”. Before the Russian invasion in February 2022, Ukraine had been working towards achieving EU environmental standards in its waters and in 2020 had even declared that the Black Sea was “alive” again – after years of its feeder rivers pumping in toxic industrial chemicals and agricultural pesticides. Tens of thousands of euros had been spent on bringing the water purity – and as a result, the biodiversity – up to EU standards. “It is such a unique ecosystem. I have spent most of my life watching life come back to the Black Sea, pollution reducing, the Danube getting better, so the Black Sea [gets] better. It is my sea. And now this war,” says Slobodnik. “We believe the ecology has been radically changed and damaged. We can see some evidence on satellite imagery; recently, we could see these invasive plants, an ugly, foaming red species.” Satellite pictures also show dozens of Russian vessels at anchor off the Russian-occupied eastern shores and the Crimean peninsula. Viktor Komorin, a marine scientist at the Ukrainian Scientific Centre of Ecology of the Sea (UkrSCES), says: “We think a lot of the Russian shadow fleet is in and out of there,there have been a lot of sinkings and a lot of damaged vessels, there were a lot of crashes at the beginning of the war near Snake island,all of which are producing oil spills we can see through satellite imagery. But no work can be done on the oil spills; we can only monitor the multiple pollutants – very aggressive and very toxic.” Komorin has taken part in dozens of scientific expeditions in the Black Sea and fears the war is taking an irreversible toll. “Its a very unique ecosystem, already very vulnerable to climate change and to organic pollution, as 82% of its volume is hydrogen sulphide, where only bacteria thrives. Only the very top surface level of the water is oxygenated water.” Komorin says he is desperate to discover the reality of the war’s impact on the sea, but he is realistic that the damaged oceanographic research ship the Boris Alexander would be high risk to deploy even if it were seaworthy. “We already know there’s a lot of dangerous objects out there – rockets and mines, drones and other explosives,” he says. In the meantime, the scientists monitor, worry and wait. Komorin’s institute in Odesa is continuing to build, as best it can, a unique database of environmental DNA from the stomachs of the dolphin carcasses, and is sampling the oils and pollutants turning up along the coastline. He has hopes that a rehabilitation of dolphin numbers could be possible after the war. “Of course, we have only half our staff left here. Men have gone to the army and women staff with children went abroad. We trust they will return after the war.”

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says US has linked security guarantees to ceding of Donbas

The US is making its offer of security guarantees for a peace deal in Ukraine conditional on Kyiv ceding all of the country’s eastern region of Donbas to Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Reuters in an interview. With the US focused on its own conflict with Iran, Donald Trump is applying pressure to Ukraine in an effort to bring a quick end to the four-year war triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion, Zelenskyy said. “The Middle East definitely has an impact on President Trump, and I think on his next steps. President Trump, unfortunately, still chooses a strategy of putting more pressure on the Ukrainian side,” he told Reuters. “I would very much like the American side to understand that the eastern part of our country is part of our security guarantees,” he said. Russia sought to blackmail the US by offering to stop sharing military intelligence with Iran if, in return, Washington would cut off Ukraine from its intelligence data, Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. Zelenskyy, who said on Monday that Ukraine’s military intelligence had “irrefutable” evidence that Russia was continuing to provide intelligence to Iran, told Reuters he had seen the data but provided no further details. “I have reports from our intelligence services showing that Russia is doing this and saying: ‘I will not pass on intelligence to Iran if America stops passing intelligence to Ukraine.’ Isn’t that blackmail? Absolutely,” Zelenskyy said. An industrial area near one of Russia’s biggest oil refineries was damaged in a Ukrainian drone attack, a Russian official said on Thursday. More than 20 drones were shot down over the northern Leningrad region, according to Governor Alexander Drozdenko. Drozdenko did not specify what part of the industrial area was damaged, but the town of Kirishi is home to one of Russia’s largest oil refineries. At least 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity is at a halt after Ukrainian drone attacks, a disputed attack on a major pipeline and the seizure of tankers, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Russian attacks killed two people in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv and the region around it and a strike on the Danube port of Izamil damaged port facilities and energy infrastructure, officials said. Prosecutors in Kharkiv region, in a statement on Telegram early on Thursday, said a woman injured in an attack on the city of Kharkiv had died of her injuries in hospital. They said nine people were injured in strikes on two districts of the city, a frequent target of Russian forces, 30km (18 miles) from the border. Prosecutors also said a Russian drone had killed a man in his car in a district closer to the border. Ukrainian drone strikes killed two people on Wednesday in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, the regional governor said. Vyacheslav Gladkov, writing on Telegram, said drones had killed an 18-year-old man aboard a motorcycle in a village near the border and a woman in her car in the town of Graivoron, also near the border. Belgorod has been a frequent target of Ukrainian forces during the four-year war pitting Kyiv against Moscow. Ukrainian shelling of a public building in the city of Belgorod killed four people last week. Zimbabwe said on Wednesday that 15 of its citizens had been killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine, the latest African country to report recruits dying on the frontlines. The information minister, Zhemu Soda, told a press conference that the 15 had been deceived into enlisting, referring to it as human trafficking. He said one recruitment method used by traffickers targeting Zimbabweans was social media. An official at Russia’s embassy in Harare declined to comment. The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, said on Wednesday he had given the military permission to board and detain Russian ships his government alleges are part of a network of vessels that enables Moscow to export oil despite western sanctions. Other European nations have stepped up efforts to disrupt Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of tankers used by Moscow to fund its four-year war against Ukraine. Starmer said he approved more aggressive action against the vessels because the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was likely “rubbing his hands” at the sharp rise in oil prices driven by the US-Israel war against Iran. The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin ally, was greeted by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, as he arrived on his first visit to the reclusive nation, the Korean Central news agency reported on Thursday. A ceremony welcoming Lukashenko took place on Kim Il Sung Square on 25 March, with Kim “gladly” meeting and “warmly” welcoming the Belarus leader, the report said. Lukashenko visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun – where the embalmed bodies of Kim’s father and grandfather lie in state – to pay his respects, flanked by top North Korean officials, the report said. Lukashenko laid a bouquet on behalf of Putin, it added. A Turkish crude oil tanker, the Altura, was hit by a drone 15 nautical miles (28km) off Istanbul’s Bosphorus strait after leaving a Russian port, the broadcaster NTV reported on Thursday. The Sierra Leone-flagged vessel had left Russia’s port of Novorossiysk with about 1m barrels of crude oil, according to ship-tracking data. It is sanctioned by the EU and Britain. NTV said there was an explosion on the bridge of the ship, owned by the Turkish firm Besiktas, when it was struck in the Black Sea and that its engine room took on water. Its 27 personnel were safe, NTV reported.

Thursday briefing: Why most Israelis back the conflict with Iran, even as international support wanes

Good morning. Israel may be the only country in the world where there is overwhelming public support for the conflict in Iran. Despite its impact on everyday life in the country – at least 15 people have been killed and hundreds more injured by Iranian missiles since the war started in February, and school closures and missile warnings remain routine – polling puts support for the war at more than 90% among Jewish Israelis. The contrast with the rest of the world is stark. Nearly a month into the fighting, polling shows that 60% of the US public oppose the war with Iran, and just one in four backed the initial strikes. In the Gulf, Europe and Asia, the conflict is widely unpopular, as severe economic consequences already begin to bite. For this morning’s newsletter, I asked the Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison, who is based in Jerusalem, about how the war with Iran is seen inside Israel – and its consequences for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But first, the headlines. Five big stories Middle East crisis | Iran dismissed a US ceasefire proposal on Wednesday and countered with a negotiation plan of its own as intermediaries sought to keep diplomatic channels between the warring countries open. Media | Matt Brittin, Google’s former top executive in Europe, has been named the BBC’s next director general. Brittin will replace Tim Davie at a crucial time for the corporation. UK politics | Political donations from British citizens living abroad are to be capped at £100,000 a year, in a move that is likely to limit further funding from Reform UK’s Thailand-based mega-donor, Christopher Harborne. UK news | The former justice minister Crispin Blunt has been fined £1,200 for possessing illegal drugs after he told a court he entered the world of chemsex parties to help inform government policy. Housing | People who lost their homes when a tower block in Dagenham burned down say they are being made to pay for the building’s fire safety works after the government demanded its money back. In depth: ‘There’s a sense in Israel that if you suffer through, you get long-term security’ Since the 7 October massacre in 2023, the bloodiest day for Israeli civilians in the country’s history, many Jewish Israelis see themselves as under siege in a hostile world, says Emma. It is still shaping life today: many Jewish Israelis have concluded that an aggressive security policy is the only way to keep the country and loved ones safe, regardless of the international reaction to Israel’s regional wars. “I think a lot of people’s support for the Iran war inside Israel is premised on the idea that the short-term suffering is to ensure long-term security, although many security experts say Israel does not have a clear strategy to turn impressive tactical achievements like killing Ali Khamenei into long-term security. At the most extreme, there is death, people are injured, there’s loss and damage to property, kids haven’t been going to school, there’s repeatedly getting up and going to the bomb shelter at night. But there’s a sense in Israel that if you suffer through this, you’ll get long-term security,” Emma says. Life in Jerusalem is still restricted by the realities of war. Many are working from home, and there are restrictions on opening on everything from cafes to gyms. “People are very tired because you never know when the next alert is going to be. In Jerusalem, when the sirens go off, you have 90 seconds to get to a shelter. In the north, where the rockets are coming from, people have just a matter of seconds,” she says. That is if you are lucky enough to have a bomb shelter within reach. Palestinian citizens of Israel are much less likely to have access to a shelter, and are much less likely to support the war than Jewish Israelis. In the West Bank, there are no sirens, even though as an occupying military power Israel has responsibility for the civilian population. Last week, four women were killed in a beauty salon near Hebron. *** Netanyahu’s electoral fortunes The public support for the war with Iran has not translated into a resurgence in the political fortunes of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says Emma. The first general election since 7 October will be held later this year – with Netanyahu currently lagging behind in the polls. “There is majority support for Netanyahu’s decision to launch this war with Iran and his handling of it, even among people who do not want to give him another term. With Gaza, polls show they didn’t always think he was making decisions for security reasons. They thought his own personal considerations came into it. But on this, they trust him much more,” she says. “Even so, they still don’t seem to want to bring him back to office. And if his coalition doesn’t get enough seats to return him to power, he’s obviously very worried about it because he’s on trial for corruption, and has asked Donald Trump to intervene by pushing the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog to give him a pre-emptive pardon.” *** Too close to Trump However, some in Israel who support the war in principle are worried that by pushing to attack Iran, Netanyahu has put the country’s most important diplomatic relationship in jeopardy. “More than one of the Israeli intelligence and military officials who I spoke to about Israel’s war aims said the greatest risk of the war was the long-term damage it might do to the relationship between Israel and America,” Emma says. Historically, Israel’s foreign policy has been based on cultivating bipartisan ties. Netanyahu has effectively abandoned that to cultivate an extremely close relationship with Trump. US polls were already showing a decline in support for Israel before the attacks on Iran. If this ends in way which is seen as a failure in the US, the examination of Trump’s decision to go to war is likely to produce a lot more of the rhetoric we saw in the resignation of Joe Kent, the far-right former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “If this war creates a situation where future American presidents, whether Democrat or Republican, don’t want such a close relationship with Israel, even significant military gains might end up looking like a pyrrhic victory, because that alliance is so foundational for Israel” says Emma. *** Israel’s isolation “One thing I find striking is that if you look at the history of where Israel has found security on its borders, it reached negotiated agreements with Jordan and Egypt, once considered an existential threat as Iran is now. The unwillingness to look at those examples or even really discuss them as positive things – insisting instead that the only route to security is through military power – is really dangerous and disturbing. But you can see why it brings Trump and Netanyahu together because they want to burn through the old world order and what’s left of international law – with might is right.” Even so, Emma says that most Israelis are undeterred by international criticism of the conflict, despite the growing economic toll. “Israel might be the only place in the world where there is broad support for this war. No one else is really happy about it. The Americans certainly aren’t. No one in the Gulf is. For people in Lebanon and Iran, this is horrific. Obviously ordinary Iranians, as much as they hate their government, and risked their lives to protest against it, does not mean they see US and Israeli bombs as a route to a better future. You only have to consider Iraq,” Emma says. “It is an reflection of how isolated Israel already is, something that seems likely to deepen the longer this conflict continues.” What else we’ve been reading If you have young kids in your life, you’ve no doubt racked up countless hours of Bluey. But have you ever noticed the Beethoven and Bach floating through its score? Tom Service asks whether everyone’s favourite pup could save classical music. Lucinda Everett, newsletters team The toupee is back. Rebranded as a “hair system”, the new designs have managed to banish the stereotype of a strange looking patch that could blow off in the wind. Patrick As Matt Brittin becomes the BBC’s new director general, Michael Savage takes a look at what the former Google exec has to offer, and what’s in store for him. An insightful, rather-him-than-me read. Lucinda In October last year, the El Fasher massacre marked one of the most brutal chapters of Sudan’s civil war, with tens of thousands of people killed. Mark Townsend has put together the story of those 48 hours. Patrick “This is a time for radical ideas, disruptive ideas, ideas that shift the window.” I enjoyed Jonathan Liew’s sharp column on why Labour must offer a lasting vision for energy security. Lucinda Sport Football | Manchester United face an uphill battle to reach the Women’s Champions League semi-finals after being edged out 3-2 by Bayern Munich at Old Trafford on Wednesday. London Marathon | The London Marathon is in advanced talks about staging a two-day event in 2027, allowing tens of thousands more runners to take part in the iconic race and to raise tens of millions more for charity. Athletics | Three runners who were led off course in a race that served as a qualifier for the World Road Running Championships have been given entry into the upcoming competition. The front pages “Iran rejects US ceasefire proposal amid attempts to keep talks alive” is top story at the Guardian. The FT has “Kremlin bolsters Iran’s war effort by shipping drone, medicines and food”, “Trump flies into rage as Iran rejects peace plan” is the Times splash, while i Paper leads on “Royal Navy forced to borrow warship - from Germany - deepening fears on UK defences”. The Telegraph splashes on “£400m cost of savings scandal” and the Mail says “A.I. bot told teen to use a hammer to kill his mother”. The Mirror headlines on “Do your duty”, in reference to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and the Sun asks “Why isn’t Huw in jail?” Today in Focus Is Cuba Trump’s next target? The journalists Ruaridh Nicoll and Daniel Montero report from Havana as Cuba suffers from a devastating oil blockade imposed by the US. Cartoon of the day | Ella Baron The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Often overshadowed by the Amazon, few have heard of Gran Chaco, the enormous dry forest that spans parts of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. Although it is home to extraordinary species like the jaguar, the maned wolf and the giant armadillo, it is one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. But now, groups of farmers and conservation groups have teamed up to help protect this mass of thorny shrubs and giant quebracho trees from rapidly expanding agricultural frontiers by setting up glamping and kayak tours in El Impenetrable national park in Argentina. I stayed at one of these glamping sites in 2022 while working a story about jaguar reintroductions for the Guardian. Nestled near the banks of the Bermejito river, it is one of the most magical places I have visited. In the dry season, the shrunken river is one of the best places to see wildlife including tapirs, capybaras and hundreds of bird species. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Martin Belam’s Thursday news quiz Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Gulf states’ scepticism over alleged US-Iran talks signals a distrust of Trump

Not long after Donald Trump said the US was engaged in “strong talks” to bring the war with Iran to an end this week, Qatar took the unusual step of distancing itself from the alleged diplomatic negotiations. Qatar was not involved in any mediation efforts, said government spokesperson Majed al-Ansari at a briefing on Tuesday night, before adding as a telling aside: “If they exist.” It signalled a notable break from Qatar’s historic and recurring position as chief mediator in Middle East and wider regional conflicts. Whether for negotiations between Israel and Hamas, talks between the US and the Taliban or attempting to broker peace deals in Lebanon and Sudan, orchestrating diplomatic summits has formed a cornerstone of the small Gulf state’s international heft. Yet this time, over the past three or more weeks, Qatar and fellow Gulf countries have found themselves on the frontlines of the war, after their mediation efforts to try to prevent the conflict were ultimately spurned by the US. The US has attacked Iran twice during negotiations aimed at halting the Iranian nuclear programme, which were championed and led by the Gulf state of Oman. Discussions last June were halted as the US and Israel conducted strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Revived talks this February were also quickly rendered useless when US president Donald Trump began bombing Tehran with Israel before the final round of meetings. Since the war began, Gulf states have been forced to spend billions rebuffing a daily onslaught of Iranian missiles and drones, their economies and sovereignty taking an increasingly substantive hit. Analysts said their reluctance to cheerlead the alleged ceasefire efforts reflected both the heavy toll they continued to suffer from the war, as well as a lingering suspicion over whether Trump’s talk of peace was genuine or another foil for escalation. “They’ve been burned by their previous experience,” said Bilal Saab, senior managing director of advisory group Trends US and former Pentagon official in the first Trump administration. He added: “They previously thought they played a useful mediating role – until they realised that it was all for naught. Not to mention that they have been directly implicated in the war and are still being attacked by the Iranians. So there’s a lot of pent-up frustration and disappointment that is affecting their willingness, and perhaps even ability, to mediate anything.” The lack of clarity around the current alleged negotiations between the US and Iran, and a deep mistrust of the Trump regime, have left Gulf leaders reluctant to put themselves on the frontlines of talks for the time being, said analysts. It is still unclear exactly who the US is talking to in Iran to put forward their proposal for peace. Fundamental questions remain over who in the Iranian regime is calling the shots, after the assassination of multiple senior Iranian regime figures and with newly appointed supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei still hidden from public view. By Wednesday night, the Iranian regime had outright rejected Trump’s 15-point plan to end the war, submitted to Tehran via Pakistani generals, as “extremely unreasonable” and put forward their own strikingly different proposal. The concern of offering legitimacy to talks that ultimately become a front for escalation, or even the assassination of more Iranian leaders, was also acknowledged to be a regional concern. Even as Trump insisted progress was being made in negotiations, thousands of US troops were being deployed to the Middle East, and there remained a potent fear among the Gulf states of being played as pawns in the US and Israel’s Middle East game. Saab said: “There is still a strong possibility that this is a ruse in preparation for another military operation or that the US wants to hold negotiations under the threat of a ground invasion.” Iranian diplomatic sources voiced similar fears. One source said “there’s a high degree of scepticism” about the potential of peace talks being hosted in Islamabad. “As we saw, in previous negotiations we had with the US, they used it to attack and kill our leaders. Mistrust is very high.” Bader al-Saif, professor at Kuwait University and fellow at Chatham House, said it was hard for Gulf states to ignore that “whenever the word negotiation was used by the Trump administration, we unfortunately ended up under the rubric of war”. “Trump has his own long-winded, loosely defined notion of negotiations,” he added. “Right now, it’s still very volatile. I think the Gulf states will come into the negotiations when they feel that there is something real they can offer.” However, he emphasised their reluctance to get embroiled in a possible Trumpian charade was counterbalanced by a recognition of the critical importance of shaping and influencing any realistic peace negotiations which could put the Gulf’s future at stake. The prospect of Trump ending the war with the current Iranian regime still in place less than 100 miles away from some Gulf capitals – potentially angrier and more vengeful than before and with an acute awareness of the damage its missiles and drones can do to multi-billion-dollar infrastructure and industry – is widely viewed as an existential threat to future economic ambitions. There is also still no clear solution on how to end Iran’s highly successful stranglehold over the strait of Hormuz, through which most of the Gulf’s oil and gas is exported to the world, which remains a sword of Damocles over the region. Yet a protracted US-led war fighting for the elusive goal of regime change in Iran also risked bleeding the Gulf economies dry and putting vital energy and water infrastructure in danger of being debilitated, which would have a heavy civilian cost. There also remained the omnipresent threat of Tehran activating sleeper cells and armed factions loyal to Iran, in countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, with the potential to trigger a destabilising internal proxy war. Al-Saif said that not only was it vital that Gulf states be at the table of any peace talks if they did take place, but called for the countries of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – the political grouping of the Gulf states – to instigate their own separate negotiations with Iran, to ensure their interests were protected in the long run. “They shouldn’t only count on the US to do the negotiation,” said al-Saif. “They should go and strike a deal with Iran for themselves. This was not our war, and if we can shield ourselves from being impacted any further, we should do it to protect our own national interests.” The suggestion of Pakistan – an Islamic country that has a defence pact with Saudi Arabia and close ties to other GCC countries – as the most likely venue to host and orchestrate the peace talks was one relatively favourable to the Gulf states, said al-Saif. However, others questioned whether Islamabad had the same economic leverage and heft over Iran as Gulf countries such as Qatar and the UAE, which are holding billions of dollars of Iranian funds in their banks. Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, emphasised that beyond securing the flow of trade through the strait of Hormuz and dismantling the nuclear programme, there was no reason to expect Trump would prioritise the needs of the Gulf in any negotiations with Iran, despite their longstanding security agreement. Iran meanwhile was highly unlikely to agree to give up the missiles that had done so much damage to the Gulf states and could prove an effective tool for future leverage. “The Gulf states could easily be thrown under the bus again by Trump; he doesn’t care that deeply about them beyond sources of personal commercial opportunity,” said Vatanka. While he emphasised it would take seismic feats of diplomacy to rebuild trust between Iran and the Gulf states, Vatanka said he expected them to ultimately forge their own path with Tehran, as they had done before the war broke out. “No matter what happens, they’re still going to be frontline states. Iran is just across the waterway and they’re not a fortress,” added Vatanka. “So once the shooting ends, the Gulf states will need to decide: are there ways they can push this regime in a different direction?”