Oman's Foreign Minister: Any security structure in the Persian Gulf is inherently unstable without Iran's presence Bader bin Hamad al-Busaidi at Cambridge University: Perhaps the most harmful priority imposed on the region from the outside was the demand to exclude Iran. Not only to exclude Iran, but even worse, to present this country as a threat against which the security of the region must be organized. Instead of creating a real security structure to maintain stable relations between the eight countries of the Persian Gulf, an unstable regional system was created based on the completely wrong notion that there is a fundamental enmity between Iran and the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf. There is no such fundamental hostility. Of course there are problems, but the obvious fact is that Arabs and Iranians have lived side by side and in peace around the Persian Gulf for centuries. The question is not whether you are friends or enemies of Iran. Today Iran is a reality, with a population of 93 million people, three thousand years of history and almost half of the shores of the Persian Gulf. Any security structure in the Persian Gulf that does not include Iran is inherently unstable and fundamentally flawed. Recent developments have revealed the heavy price of continuing the false perception of hostility towards Iran and the policy of excluding this country from regional security arrangements. For nearly half a century, Iran has been systematically denied a significant role in the security arrangements of the Persian Gulf. This policy had profound negative consequences not only for Iran, but for the entire region. The countries of the region should take responsibility for the planning, development and implementation of the new security structure and start comprehensive regional dialogues before imposing other solutions on the region from the outside.