x ISRAEL WEST BANK IRAQ Jerusalem Amman Eup GAZA hrates IRAN Basra JORDAN Shiraz KUWAIT Al Jauf Kuwait Cairo Sinai P e Bandar Abbas r s i a Tunb Islands n G u OMAN l f Abu Musa Dammam Manama Ras Al-Khaimah N QATAR Ajman il Sharjah e Buraydah Dubai BAHRAIN Doha Abu Dhabi Muscat EGYPT Riyadh UNITED Medina ARAB EMIRATES R e Aswan d SAUDI ARABIA S e a N A Jeddah Mecca M O SUDAN Port Sudan 0 miles 250 Indian Abha Ocean 0 km 400 YEMEN Map of the Arab Gulf States 1. Muslim pilgrims circumambulate (tawaf ) the sacred Kaaba during sunrise after fajr prayer in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. 2. President Nixon and Mrs Nixon welcome King Faisal of Saudi Arabia on a visit to the United States in May 1971. 3. Henry Kissinger (left), the US Secretary of State, meets the Shah of Iran (right) in Zurich in early 1975. 4. Sheik Yamani talks about oil and the Palestinian problem during a press conference in Saudi Arabia in July 1979. 5. Crowds of Iranian protestors demonstrate in support of exiled Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Khomeini in 1978, the year prior to the revolution. 6. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein addresses members of his armed forces shortly before the invasion of Iran in September 1980. 7. Saudi Arabian soldiers prepare to load into armoured personnel carriers during clean-up operations following the Battle of Khafji, 2 February 1991. The Battle of Khafji was the first major ground engagement of the 1991 Gulf war. 8. Palestinian women demonstrate with Palestinian and Iraqi flags and portraits of Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein in the West Bank during the Kuwait crisis of 1990–91. 9. Kuwaiti men dance in the streets and Egyptian coalition forces join in as they celebrate the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, 28 February 1991, in Kuwait City, Kuwait. 10. US General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander-in-chief, US Central Command, dictates conditions for a ceasefire of combat operations to Iraqi generals during talks, 3 March 1991, in Safwan, Iraq. Next to General Schwarzkopf is General Khalid bin Sultan (right), the senior Saudi military officer and commander of Joint Forces in Saudi Arabia, and across the table are two Iraqi lieutenant-generals. 11. On television from somewhere in Afghanistan, left to right: Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the Al- Qaeda spokesman; Osama bin Laden; Ayman Zawahri of Egypt’s Jihad; and Mohammed Atef. 12. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Qatar’s emir between 1995 and 2013, meets with President George W. Bush at the White House in Washington, DC, in May 2003, less than two months after the American invasion of Iraq. 13. Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who served in that role from 1983 to 2005. 14. Prince Bandar, who served as Saudi ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005. 15. Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), in 2010. This impressive mosque was named after the ruler of Abu Dhabi who was the main driving force behind the founding of the UAE. He served as the first president of the UAE for thirty-three years until his death in 2004. 16. Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa of Bahrain welcomes German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Manama, Bahrain, 27 May 2010. Merkel visited four Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries during this trip to discuss politics and business in the midst of the global financial crisis. 17. The view towards Saudi Arabia from the halfway point of the King Fahd Causeway linking Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. 18. Protestors on the streets of Bahrain in April 2014, three years after the civil strife that divided the kingdom and led to an unprecedented GCC military intervention. 19. A Saudi soldier on duty at the largest oil refinery in the world, located at Ras Tanura, on the east coast of Saudi Arabia. 20. President Barack Obama delivers remarks alongside delegation leaders following the GCC–US summit at Camp David, Maryland, on 14 May 2015. 21. US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter meets in Washington with Prince Mohammed bin Salman, deputy crown prince and minister of defence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 4 September 2015. 22. US Secretary of State John Kerry stands with Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi of Oman, Baroness Catherine Ashton of the European Union, and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif of Iran, before the beginning of three-way negotiations about the future of Iran’s nuclear programme in November 2014, Muscat, Oman. 23. King Salman of Saudi Arabia with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt at the end of an official five-day state visit to Egypt in April 2016. During this visit, both leaders announced the decision to build a bridge across the Red Sea to link the two countries, as well as connecting Asia and Africa. 24. A panoramic view of the Dubai skyscrapers and the Burj Khalifa tower, the tallest structure in the world, before sunrise in late 2015. 25. Preparations underway for a January 2016 performance at the stunning Royal Opera House, Muscat, Oman..