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The outgoing Gulf Co-operation Council secretary-general, Abdul-Lateef Rashid Al-Zayani, will become Bahrain’s foreign minister when his GCC term ends on 31 March. Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al -Khalifa on 2 January told Al-Zayani that King Hamad Bin Salman Al-Khalifa was to appoint him to take over from Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa who has been FM since September 2005.Veteran diplomat Sheikh Khalid has been appointed diplomatic affairs advisor to King Hamad.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and UAE Armed Forces deputy supreme commander Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (MBZ) is the subject of an investigation by French judicial authorities over accusations he was complicit in acts of torture in UAE-controlled detention centres in Yemen, according to a report by Agence France Presse on 17 July.

Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani held talks with US Central Command in the Middle East commander General Kenneth McKenzie at Al-Bahr Palace on 16 July, reviewing military and defence co-operation and what a comminqué said were efforts to improve security and stability in the region, while McKenzie thanked Qatar for hosting US forces at the Al-Udeid Air Base. A little over a week later, on 26 July, Tamim hosted another senior US military official, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Mark Milley, with a similar range of topics on the formal agenda.

New ambassador to Norway Amaal Bint Yahya Al-Mouallami took an oath of office in front of King Salman Bin Abdelaziz on 20 October, becoming the kingdom’s second female ambassador after Princess Reema Bint Bandar, who was appointed ambassador to the United States in early 2019.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (MBZ) has ordered a mosque to be built in Abu Dhabi’s  diplomatic area to be named after Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo.

The Arar border crossing reopened for trade on 18 November, having been closed 30 years earlier after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait; the only exceptions were made for pilgrims heading from Iraq into Saudi Arabia.

The fourth United States-Kuwait Strategic Dialogue was held in Washington DC on 24 November, following two weeks of meetings by bilateral working groups. The delegations were led by US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Kuwaiti foreign minister Dr Ahmed Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah.

Following on from the UAE’s opening of a consulate in the disputed Western Sahara, where the Gulf states generally support Morocco’s claims to sovereignty, Bahrain in mid-December opened a consulate-general in the territory’s capital Laâyoune (usually spelt El Aioun by the rival Polisario Front independence movement).

Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on 26 January that Tehran was seeking to form a new six-county “co-operation union” in the West Asia region. He made the comments in Moscow, on the second leg of a regional tour which started in Azerbaijan, where he held talks with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, and which will see him continue on to Georgia, Armenia and Turkey.

 Belgium’s ambassador to Iran Veronique Petit was summoned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department for European Affairs director-general on 9 February to receive a formal written statement of Tehran’s displeasure at the conviction of Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi by an Antwerp court five days earlier. Tehran insists Assadi’s detention and subsequent trial contravened the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Muscat has been building on its historical ties with Tanzania with a number of agreements. In January, Oman Investment Authority signed an agreement with Tanzanian works, communication and transport minister Amour Hamil Bakari to establish a multi-purpose port in Mangapwani. The port, on Zanzibar’s North West coast, is a greenfield site and is to have container and cargo terminals, a harbour for fishing vessels, and oil and natural gas import facilities.

The trial of Hamid Nouri, the Iranian public prosecutor arrested in Sweden in November 2019, is due to start on 8 June, according to Iraj Mesdaghi, a former political prisoner and one of the plaintiffs in the case.

GSN Risk Grade – B↑1 Overview Politics: Al-Thanis have ruled since the mid-19th century, reinforced by British recognition of their right to govern. 25 years after independence in 1971, the peninsula gained hugely in power, confidence and wealth with ‘Father Emir’ Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani’s drive to develop gas reserves.

Gulf countries appear to have claimed the scalp of Lebanese foreign minister Charbel Wehbe, who resigned on 19 May after making some ill-judged comments in a TV debate with Saudi political analyst Salman Al-Ansari.

Prince Mansour Bin Khalid Bin Abdullah Al-Farhan submitted a copy of his credentials as Saudi ambassador to Qatar’s foreign affairs minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on 21 June.