Stories under this heading cover the Gulf and the Red Sea regions, including the Arabian Peninsula, Iran and the countries bordering the Red Sea.
An announcement on Wednesday (31 May) that the UAE had withdrawn its participation from the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) coalition is supposed to have caught the US by surprise.
An announcement on Wednesday (31 May) that the UAE had withdrawn its participation from the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) coalition is supposed to have caught the US by surprise.
The Italian government has lifted a 2019 embargo on exporting military weapons to Saudi Arabia.
The decision, taken on Wednesday (31 May) was announced in a communique at the end of a Council of Ministers meeting presided over by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and was made "in accordance with the foreign and defense policy of Italy".
Restrictions on the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia were put in place in 2019 to prevent Italian-made weaponry being used in the conflict in Yemen.
This editorial first appeared in the 9 May 2023 issue of our newsletter Arabia Concise. If you would like to subscribe to Arabia Concise, or any other of our newsletters, please click here.
Uzbekistan and Qatar have expanded their bilateral relations after a meeting of their foreign ministers in the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Sunday (7 May).
Bakhtiyor Saidov and Soltan bin Saad Al-Muraikhi "discussed dynamic Uzbekistan – Qatar relations, the implementation of joint programs, prospects for intensifying political dialogue, trade and investment, cultural, and people-to-people ties", according to a statement released by the Uzbek Foreign Ministry.