Iran-Gulf Arabs must talk to prevent crisis: Qatar PM

Qatar's prime minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani (R) speaks in Seoul February 1, 2007. Dialogue between Gulf Arabs and Iran over its nuclear ambitions is the best way to avoid another crisis in the oil-exporting region, Qatar's prime minister said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Dialogue between Gulf Arabs and Iran over its nuclear ambitions is the best way to avoid another crisis in the oil-exporting region, Qatar's prime minister said.

"It is very important that we have clear relations, frank relations, with Iran," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani said in remarks aired on Monday.

Discussion was important and "each side must respect the other's thinking and its understanding of security", he said at a conference in Doha.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons and has pressed its Gulf Arab allies, including Qatar, to cut trade and other ties with Tehran.

Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and has mounted its own diplomatic offensive to boost ties with Gulf Arabs -- Sunni-ruled countries that have been traditionally suspicious of mainly Shi'ite Iran's ambitions in the region.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency has been seeking to clarify whether Iran has worked towards developing nuclear weapons and Sheikh Hamad noted differences between the positions of the U.N. agency and Tehran.

"The IAEA is not 100 percent agreed with Iran but what we hear differs to what we hear from other parties, so it is important that no one shoves the region toward a new adventure and that as neighbors with Iran we have an understanding about this issue," he said.

Washington has imposed sanctions on major Iranian state banks, saying they finance terrorism or support nuclear plans.

Sheikh Hamad said Gulf Arabs should be careful to prevent misunderstandings or international machinations from pushing the region into another war.

Referring to past wars and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he said: "Who has benefited from these wars and on what basis ... did these wars happen?

"All of them were based on unsound studies and we may have been hoodwinked and we reached the result that we have destroyed ourselves, for the power of Iraq was important to the Arab and Islamic world and so was the power of Kuwait and of Iran."

Of Iran's nuclear program, he said: "It could be that this issue is peaceful and we could benefit from it, and if it is military then we should ask Iran why it is military. Is it meant for us, the close neighbors, or those further away?"

He added: "The most important thing is that we do not enter into an international game in which we will be exploited ... and come out as the losers on both sides."

(Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Stephen Weeks)