Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that it wants to avert a war in the region but stands ready to respond with "all strength" following last week's attacks on Saudi oil assets, telling Iran that the ball was now in its court.
Riyadh has accused Tehran of ordering Tuesday's drone strikes on two oil pumping stations in the kingdom claimed by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group. Two days earlier, four vessels, including two Saudi oil tankers, were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman invited Gulf and Arab leaders to convene emergency summits in Mecca on May 30 to discuss implications of the attacks.
"The current critical circumstances entail a unified Arab and Gulf stance toward the besetting challenges and risks," the United Arab Emirates' foreign ministry said in a statement.
Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir told reporters: "We want peace and stability in the region, but we won't stand with our hands bound. The ball is in Iran's court and it is up to Iran to determine what its fate will be."
Al-Jubeir added that his country "will do what it can to prevent this war and at the same time it reaffirms that in the event the other side chooses war, the kingdom will respond with all force and determination, and it will defend itself and its interests."
Ministers from major oil-producing countries were to meet in Saudi Arabia later on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard said on Sunday that his country is not pursuing war but is prepared to fight one if necessary.
"The difference between us and them is that they are afraid of war and don't have the will for it," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Gen. Hossein Salami as saying.
Salami added that Iran is in a "full-fledged intelligence war with the U.S," and that the political system in the United States had become weak, making an analogy to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
"The political system of the U.S. has cracked and lost its strength. The system has an apparently huge body but suffers from osteoporosis," Salami said. "In fact, the U.S. is like [the] World Trade Building that collapses with a sudden hit."
On Saturday, Bahrain ordered all of its citizens to immediately leave Iraq and Iran, amid rising tensions in the Persian Gulf.
Bahrain's Foreign Ministry made the announcement via its state-run news agency.
It cited the "unstable situation in the region and the grave developments and threats that threaten security and stability."
Exxon Mobil has evacuated foreign staff from an oilfield in neighboring Iraq.
The decision to evacuate its foreign staff from the West Qurna 1 oilfield in southern Iraq on Saturday was "unacceptable and unjustified", Iraq's Oil Minister Thamer Ghadhban said on Sunday.
"The withdrawal of multiple employees despite their small number, temporarily, has nothing to do with the security situation or threats in the oilfields in of southern Iraq, but it's for political reasons," Ghadhban said in a statement.
Exxon Mobil, which has a long term contract to improve the oilfield on behalf of Iraq's state South Oil Company, withdrew all foreign staff, around 60 people, Iraqi officials have said.
