Iranian officials have reached out to Middle Eastern countries over threat of a possible U.S. military strike. President Trump urged Iran to negotiate, warning time is running out.<\/b>
\nArab Emirates Iranian officials reached out to the wider Middle East on Wednesday over the threat of a possible U.S. military strike on the country, a month since the start of protests in Iran that soon spread nationwide and sparked a bloody crackdown.
Two nations, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have signaled they won\u2019t allow their airspace to be used for any attack. But America has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided missile destroyers into the region, which can be used to launch attacks from the sea.This photo provided by the U.S. Navy shows a Boeing F\/A-18E Super Hornet landing on the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean on Jan. 22, 2026. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Daniel Kimmelman\/U.S. Navy via AP)
It remains unclear what U.S. President Donald Trump will decide about using force, though he laid down two red lines \u2014 the killing of peaceful demonstrators and the possible mass execution of detainees. The protests saw at least 6,221 people killed as Iran launched a bloody crackdown on the demonstrations, with many others feared dead, activists said Wednesday.
\u201cHopefully Iran will quickly \u2018Come to the Table\u2019 and negotiate a fair and equitable deal \u2013 NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS \u2013 one that is good for all parties,\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday. \u201cTime is running out, it is truly of the essence!\u201d
Mentioning the June strikes on Iran, Trump wrote: \u201cThe next attack will be far worse!\u201d
Iran\u2019s state-run media, which now only refers to protesters as \u201cterrorists,\u201d remains the sole source of news for many as Tehran cut off access to the global internet some three weeks ago. But Iranians have become angry and anxious in the weeks since, seeing footage of protesters shot and killed while worrying about what may happen next as the country\u2019s economy sinks further.
\u201cI feel that my generation failed to give a better lesson to younger ones,\u201d said Mohammad Heidari, a 59-year-old high school teacher in Tehran. \u201cThe result of decades of teaching by my colleagues and me led to death of thousands, and maybe more injured and prisoners.\u201d
Egypt\u2019s Foreign Ministry said its top diplomat, Badr Abdelatty, separately spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff to \u201cwork toward achieving calm, in order to avoid the region slipping into new cycles of instability.\u201d
The statement offered no details, though Iranian state media quoted Araghchi as saying third-party mediators had been in touch. Witkoff, a billionaire real estate developer and Trump\u2019s friend, had earlier negotiated over Iran\u2019s nuclear program. There was no immediate acknowledgment from the White House of the call.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held a call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, saying the kingdom would \u201cnot allow its airspace or territory to be used for any military actions against Iran or for any attacks from any party, regardless of their origin.\u201d That follows a similar pledge by the UAE.
Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE host American air assets and troops. Both also have faced attacks in the last decade. A 2019 assault believed by the West to have been carried out by Iran briefly halved Saudi oil production. The UAE faced several attacks claimed by Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels in 2022.
However, America\u2019s biggest base in the region is Qatar\u2019s vast Al Udeid Air Base, which serves as the forward operating headquarters of the U.S. military\u2019s Central Command. Both Araghchi and Ali Larijani, a top Iranian security official, held calls with Qatar\u2019s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. Qatar acknowledged the calls, but offered few specifics on what was discussed.
Iran attacked Al Udeid in June in response to Trump sending American warplanes to bomb Iranian nuclear enrichment sites after Israel launched a 12-day war on the Islamic Republic.
\u201cOur position is exactly this: Applying diplomacy through military threats cannot be effective or constructive,\u201d Araghchi told journalists Wednesday outside of a Cabinet meeting. \u201cIf they want negotiations to take shape, they must abandon threats, excessive demands, and the raising of illogical issues. Negotiations have their own principles: they must be conducted on an equal footing, based on mutual respect, and for mutual benefit.\u201d
While the protests have been halted for weeks after the crackdown, information slowly trickling out of Iran via Starlink satellite dishes is reaching activists, who have been trying to tally the carnage.
On Wednesday, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, said at least 6,221 dead it counted included at least 5,858 protesters, 214 government-affiliated forces, 100 children and 49 civilians who weren\u2019t demonstrating. More than 42,300 have been arrested, it added.
The group verifies each death and arrest with a network of activists on the ground in Iran. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll given that authorities cut off the internet and disrupted calls into the Islamic Republic.
Iran\u2019s government has put the death toll at a far lower 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and security forces, and labeled the rest \u201cterrorists.\u201d In the past, Iran\u2019s theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from unrest.
That death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The protests began on Dec. 28, sparked by the fall of the Iranian currency, the rial, and quickly spread across the country. They were met by a violent crackdown, the scale of which is only starting to become clear as the country has faced more than two weeks of internet blackout \u2014 the most comprehensive in its history.
Iran on Wednesday also announced the execution of Hamidreza Sabet, a man it convicted of spying for Israel. Sabet\u2019s execution marks the 13th carried out by Iran against alleged spies for Israel since the June war.<\/p>\n