His Majesty King Abdullah II on the Iran nuclear deal during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria: You have talked about the shadow of Iran for a long time; you talked about, I remember, the Shiite crescent; do you think that Iran being out of the nuclear deal as it is now, is stable or would you rather see it back in what was the deal negotiated by the Obama administration?

His Majesty King Abdullah II: Well, again, just to add clarification, when I said the Shiite crescent, what I meant was the Iranian crescent from a political point of view. And we all know the history, the culture of the Iranian people; they add so much to the world, and we also know that the Iranian people are suffering internally. And, as you know, Jordan, we are always about dialogue and moving the benchmarks forward as opposed to looking over our shoulders and creating more challenges.

Having said that, there are legitimate concerns in our part of the world on a lot of portfolios that the Americans are hopefully going to be able to discuss with the Iranians, so the nuclear programme affects Israel as it does the Gulf. The ballistic technology has improved dramatically; we have seen that, unfortunately, against American bases in Iraq; we have seen Saudi being a recipient of missiles out of Yemen, Israel from Syria and Lebanon, to an extent, and what misses Israel sometimes lands in Jordan.

So we do have these concerns, and add to that, increased cyberattacks on many of our countries. The firefights on our borders have increased almost to the times when we were at the high-end with Daesh. And, unfortunately, Jordan has been attacked by drones that that are Iranian-signature that we have had to deal with. So, we do have these—

Zakaria: All this in the recent months? 

King Abdullah II: In the past year or so, and escalating. So, we do know that the talks in Vienna have been slightly postponed until this new government in Iran settles in. I have a feeling that where the American position is, and where the Iranian position is, is somewhat far apart, but like I said at the beginning, we have concerns, legitimate I think, in our region that we would like to address with the Iranians, and do those talks bridge that gap of the concerns that we have?

And, again, if you look at our part of the world, the UAE have been engaging with Iran to try and bring down the temperature. I have seen the same thing with Kuwait; the Sultan of Oman has always had a relationship of trying to build bridges between the Arab Gulf and Iran, and there are ongoing talks between the Saudis and the Iranians. Let’s hope that those talks get us to a better position, where we can calm the region, because we have so many challenges.

Zakaria: But do you think that it would be better if Iran were within the nuclear box?

King Abdullah II: Well, again, so, these are complications, because from the Gulf and the Israeli point of view, a nuclear programme without specific restrictions, what they are worried about what I say the flash to bang time, if some nefarious individuals in the government want to take the nuclear programme into a military one. And, I think these are the issues that the American goverment is trying to address and overcome.