Bahrain foreign minister defends US missile deployment in the region

February 4, 2010

Manama: Bahrain's foreign minister and a senior official have defended their country's right to protect itself and insisted that Iran should not see the missile shield deployment as a measure to attack any country.

During a press conference with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa on Wednesday said that the protections measures have been in place for decades, but are now being improved, without seeking to threaten anyone.

"We're not seeing anything new, nobody’s sabre-rattling here, nobody is being belligerent to anyone in the region. It’s just a purely defensive measure for the benefit of the whole world, for the region being so important to the whole world," Shaikh Khalid said.

The US administration on Monday said that it boost the protection capabilities of its Gulf allies by upgrade defence possibilities in the region. Iran immediately poured scorn on the decision, and Ali Larijani, the parliament speaker, dismissed the American missile shield as an American "puppet show" and a new political ploy to pave the way to increase its military strength in the region.

However, Shaikh Khalid said that the deployment was not an antagonistic measure.

"The point is we did not threaten anybody. The measures have been there for decades. I say it again. And it’s being developed, it’s being upgraded, new technology is coming in. So there’s nothing that we are taking the level of the weaponry to [the point] it will threaten somebody in our neighborhood.

"But we expect Iran not to see it as a measure being taken against it. This is a measure to protect. It’s not a measure to attack. It’s a measure to protect the interests of the whole world. We all know how vital the Gulf region is to the whole world and how vital the waterways out of the Gulf are for everybody.

"So to just leave it like that, to the elements, is something that we should not expect to do. So it’s something we should do as a diligent move to protect our interest – everybody’s interest," he said.

Shaikh Khalid hoped there would be no misinterpretation that would trigger an arms race in the region, saying that there are concerns about it in the region.

"If things are interpreted wrongly, there will be an arms race. We should put things into perspective: this is only a defensive measure and should not call for an arms race in the region," he said.

In Manama, Nabil Al Hamer, the head of the Bahrain Political Development Institute and the media advisor to King Hamad, said that Iran's reaction to the news that the US was deploying a missile shield in four Arabian Gulf countries was "grossly exaggerated."

"The Gulf countries have the right to protect themselves against any aggression from any country or party. Nobody should criticize the Gulf countries for seeking to protect themselves. All countries in the world do it and it is not an antagonistic stance as some people have portrayed it," Al Hamer was quoted as saying the Londan daily Asharq Al Awsat.

"The main reason for the deployment is boosting purely defensive capabilities. We will not strike anyone, but we will protect ourselves. It is a defensive system, not an aggressive one. Shouldn't Gulf countries be allowed to protect themselves? This is the premise for our move," he said.

According to Al Hamer, Iran has been overreacting to the news of the deployment.  "Tehran always exaggerates in its reactions. What is peculiar is that they possess, as they have often stated, the most modern attack weapons that can reach all countries in the Gulf," he said.

"So why do they ban the Gulf states from defending their territories? Nobody has said that the defensive weapons are targeted towards Iran specifically, and we wonder why Iran believes it is concerned with the Gulf move."

The Bahraini official insisted that the Gulf countries were keen on robust neighbourly relations with Iran.

"The Gulf countries have never adopted an antagonistic stance towards Iran. However, they do want to protect their people and Tehran and other capitals should not misunderstand the move as targeting them," he said.