US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with Bahrain officials on Thursday on the final leg of a trip to the Middle East where he has sought to sell the Trump administration's preliminary Iran accord to skeptical Gulf Arab allies.
Rubio has acknowledged his delicate mission in pitching the peace deal to Gulf Arab leaders who fear excessive concessions will strengthen Tehran and reshape the region's security balance and oil flows.
Arriving on Wednesday night in Bahrain's capital Manama, which hosts the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, Rubio will also meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, a grouping of six Sunni monarchies that also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.
His three-day tour of the oil-rich Gulf is the first high-level diplomatic mission since the US-Iran framework agreement last week to end the war.
Middle East Eye ISSN 2634-2456