Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry urged “Iran to avoid escalation and not to subject the security and stability of the region to further tension, and to engage seriously in the current ongoing negotiations… towards Iran’s utilisation of its nuclear program for peaceful purposes”. It further underlined “the importance of the international community reaching an agreement with stronger and longer determinants, in a way that strengthens monitoring and control measures and ensures preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons or developing the necessary capabilities for that, and takes into account the deep concern of the countries of the region about the escalatory steps that Iran is taking to destabilise regional security and stability, including its nuclear program”. Relatedly, a senior Saudi diplomat maintained that Riyadh “is not interested in hindering or blocking the current [JCPOA] negotiations, and explained that “we want to make sure at a minimum that any financial resources made available to Iran via the nuclear deal are not used... to destabilise the region”. He further indicated that “we can begin by a nuclear deal and move on to another format that will discuss all these issues in a positive manner… Maybe such a process can begin by confidence-building measures, by reducing tensions, by reducing the arms race in the region and then build on these steps towards a better future for all of us”.