CRI听力:Gulf Allies Back Iran Nuclear Deal after US Security Guarantees

US Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting Gulf state leaders in Qatar to allay their fears of Iran gaining more regional influence after the lifting of economic sanctions.

Kerry spoke to members of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) - a regional body comprising of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar - that form the most prosperous and stable part of the Arab world.

But now they are faced with the twin threat of domestic terror attacks and regional instability due to clashes between two ideologically opposed factions: Sunni extremists like the Islamic State and Shia militias.

The Gulf countries fear the nuclear deal will pave the way for Tehran to step-up support for Shia militia groups like the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are fighting a Saudi-led Sunni coalition.

Washington is promising an increase in intelligence sharing.

The US side also says it will expedite arms transfers and provide special training for armed forced in the Gulf region.

The moves are meant to allay fears of a rising Iran, as well as to try to win support for the Iranian Nuclear deal.

Kerry says the deal includes enough safeguards to prevent Iran from attempting to develop a nuclear weapon.

"This agreement to some people's criticism, did not focus on issues that we knew might take five years, ten years to try to resolve. We focused exclusively on Iran's nuclear programme and the potential of Iran having a nuclear weapon"

The US has also agreed to help the Gulf region develop their ballistic missile defense capabilities, and strengthen their cyber security programs.

Working groups on those issues will begin meeting next week in Saudi Arabia.

But talks on fighting the Islamic state have failed to reach a consensus.

Kerry has sat down with his Russian and Saudi counterparts at a special meeting focused specifically on Syria.

The Saudi and U.S. sides have been refusing to with work with the Syrian army loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

However, Russia has continued to back Assad.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Russia will continue to provide military and technical support to the Syrian government to fight the Islamic State.

"At the moment, the greatest threat in this country, in Iraq and in the Middle East as a whole comes from the Islamic State and we are providing military and technical support to the Syrian government to combat this threat exactly as we are providing support to the Iraqi government to fight against the same Islamic State."

At the same time, the Russian side has once-again criticized the United States for providing air cover for Syrian rebel groups fighting Assad's forces.

The fighting in Syria, which began as a civil war in the spring of 2011, has since devolved into a multi-pronged battle among rival factions.

It's also allowed militant groups to gain significant control over large sections of the country.

The Islamic State currently controls most of eastern Syria and portions of western Iraq.

For CRI I'm Poornima Weerasekara.