MANAMA — Bahrain’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump understood the region and the threats posed by their common adversary Iran better than Barack Obama.
Speaking in an interview with Reuters at his office in the capital Manama, Sheikh Khaled Bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa said the staunch US Gulf ally was confident the new administration would soon clarify its stances on foreign policy.
Trump has pledged to deal forcefully with Iran and criticized a landmark international deal to curb its nuclear program inked under Obama in 2015 as a concession to a state the United States considers a sponsor of terrorism.
“We see ... a much clearer understanding from the White House of the threats we are facing here in the region and especially the ones that are coming from Iran,” Sheikh Khaled said.
“The last few years, there was a policy that we think it was better for them to correct, and we advised them it should be corrected.”
Sheikh Khaled last month met US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington and Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa has spoken by telephone with senior US officials, including Trump after his election in November.
Sheikh Khaled said his country welcomed a decision by the White House to pursue a $5 billion sale to Bahrain of 19 Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft and related equipment.
He said Trump’s style may have distracted some from the merits of his views, but all administrations had growing pains.
“They’ll get in order ... every new administration will always start in a way that will seem unclear, but clarity is coming,” he said, speaking in his green and wood-paneled office adorned with pictures of past and present Bahraini monarchs.
“Maybe when you see the difference in the personality of the president, maybe that’s kind of giving an overwhelming picture of the situation. Things are working in America.”
“We feel like we are being pressured and punished for no reason, just for sticking our neck out and addressing issues that every country has,” Sheikh Khaled said. — Reuters
