Iran issues warning against Arab states aiding US, as UAE cuts economic ties

Iran has warned Gulf states against aiding the US, hours after the UAE said it was cutting economic ties with Tehran.

Ali Abdollahi, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, warned on Wednesday that "any assistance or facilitation provided to the aggressor US military amounts to participation in the US military operation", as reported by Iran’s Mehr news agency.

"It seems unlikely that such a large number of military aircraft, particularly refuelling aircraft, could be present at regional bases without knowledge of host countries," said Abdollahi.

He added that Gulf countries "should know that we are fully aware of the situation".

Some media reports have suggested that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain have hit targets in Iran in response to attacks on the Gulf, but the countries have mostly denied such reporting.

Several Gulf states host US military bases and installations, including the UAE, which said on Tuesday that Iran had fired two ballistic missiles at vessels along its coast.

Abu Dhabi said both missiles fell in the sea, adding that one of them was within the UAE's territorial waters.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei "categorically rejected the United Arab Emirates' claim that Iran had launched a missile towards that country".

On Tuesday, the UAE announced that it was suspending all economic dealings with Iran.

"In light of regional escalations... all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice," foreign ministry official Afra al-Hameli said.

The UAE is home to a large Iranian community, and had been a major trading partner for US-sanctioned Iran before the war.

Since the war broke out, however, the UAE has taken several measures against Iran, including recalling its ambassador and closing Iran-linked schools and a hospital.

In the early months of the war, which erupted in late February after the US and Israel launched heavy attacks on Iran, Tehran heavily struck sites across the Emirates.

US mulling troop withdrawal from Gulf

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump's administration was examining whether to pull troops out of the Gulf as a result of the war on Iran, with the Pentagon weighing the risks facing large US bases in the region that have come under Iranian drone and missile attack.

The evaluation is being led by the Department of War’s policy office, which said the war was viewed as "a once-in-a-generation chance for the Pentagon to reconsider its presence in the region".

The report said that the US has already signalled that it might not rebuild its bases attacked by Iran to pre-war status.

The Washington Post corroborates Middle East Eye’s June report that cited current and former US officials as saying that a reckoning with the US’s old basing framework was expected as a result of the war.

Former senior US officials have raised the prospect of a drawdown for months.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump posted an image on social media labelling the Strait of Hormuz as "NEW U.S. Territory".

The map of the strategic waterway - through which a fifth of the globe's oil and liquefied natural gas passes - was posted on his Truth Social account.

Iran’s secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, ridiculed the post.

"The gap between America’s inability to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and its claim to own it is greater than the 7,000-mile [11,265km] distance between Washington and the Strait itself," he wrote in a post on X.

"Welcome to the post-American order in the Persian Gulf."

Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said in a speech on Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the US "commitments stipulated in the memorandum of understanding... are implemented", including lifting its naval blockade.

Meanwhile, South Korea's foreign minister said on Wednesday that Trump's ordering of the scaling back of joint military drills appeared to include pressure on Seoul to become involved in the war on Iran.

"I think President Trump's message includes pressure over several pending issues concerning the South Korean government, as well as a message to North Korea and an intention by the United States to break a stalemate in the Iran war," Cho Hyun said.

Cho indicated that neither South Korean nor US officials had prior knowledge of Trump’s order to reduce joint military exercises.