UAE Paid Iran $3B–$10B to Halt Gulf Strikes, Reuters Reports

The United Arab Emirates secretly paid Iran between $3 billion and $10 billion to halt strikes on Emirati infrastructure during the conflict, Reuters reported, even as Abu Dhabi was publicly and privately lobbying Washington to continue military pressure on Tehran, per Middle East Eye. Senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials stayed at the residence of the UAE’s national security advisor while the de-escalation arrangement was finalised, according to the same reporting.

The account, if accurate, describes one of the largest known bilateral payments by a Gulf state to Tehran during the war and reframes how the regional balance held together while the formal US-Iran negotiating track was running. It also recasts the role of a country that had publicly aligned itself with the US escalation posture.

What the reporting says

Reuters, as relayed by Middle East Eye, says the payment range is $3 billion to $10 billion. The wide band reflects the difficulty of verifying a clandestine transfer; the reporting does not specify whether the figure represents a single tranche, a phased series of payments, or a combination of cash and other consideration. The desk has not independently confirmed the underlying transfer.

The mechanism, as described, was direct: IRGC officials were physically hosted at the residence of the UAE’s national security advisor while terms were negotiated. That detail places the arrangement outside ordinary diplomatic channels and inside a security-services relationship that has not previously been disclosed.

The reporting characterises the payment’s purpose narrowly — to halt attacks on the Gulf state itself rather than to broker a wider regional cessation. Iran has continued operations against US bases and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz throughout the period in question, consistent with that narrow read.

The contradiction with Abu Dhabi’s public posture

The UAE has been among the regional voices urging Washington to continue striking Iran. Its public diplomacy through the war has emphasised support for US military pressure as a route to a durable post-conflict settlement. The Reuters reporting describes a parallel private posture in which Abu Dhabi was paying Tehran directly to keep Emirati infrastructure off the IRGC’s target list.

The two postures are not strictly incompatible — a state can simultaneously support coalition military pressure and buy its own protection — but the gap is consequential. It implies that the UAE assessed the risk of continued Iranian retaliation against its own territory as severe enough to warrant a multibillion-dollar private settlement, even while encouraging policy choices that would extend the conflict’s duration.

That assessment is informative on its own terms. Emirati infrastructure — ports, refining capacity, financial centres — is among the most exposed civilian target sets in the Gulf, and Abu Dhabi’s willingness to pay an Iran-scale ransom suggests its planners did not believe coalition air defence and US deterrence would hold against a determined IRGC campaign.

How it interacts with the formal deal track

The disclosure lands as Pakistan claims the US and Iran have agreed the final text of a peace deal while Washington and Tehran continue to send conflicting signals on terms. President Trump publicly told reporters a deal could be signed within days, and a senior US official told reporters they are “strongly confident” the agreement will be completed.

A separate Axios report says Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week to end the conflict with Iran as the talks advanced. The UAE payment, occurring on a parallel track, complicates the picture. If Tehran has already secured a multibillion-dollar settlement with one of the wealthiest Gulf economies, its leverage in the formal negotiation may be higher than Washington’s bargaining posture assumes, and its urgency to conclude on US terms may be lower.

The interaction with the Hormuz transit question is direct. The principal economic prize of any signed accord is restoration of full Strait flows, which US officials say are currently running at roughly half pre-war volume. Iran has framed Hormuz as one of its “most important deterrent tools.” A side payment from Abu Dhabi does not solve the Hormuz question, but it gives Tehran reserves with which to absorb a longer impasse on the structural terms of a US deal.

The reporting also bears on the frozen-funds mechanism Switzerland has offered to host. The headline US concession in the draft framework is access to a portion of Iranian assets currently held abroad. If Tehran has already received a comparable sum via Abu Dhabi outside any sanctions architecture, the political value of a Swiss-hosted release may be different from how Washington has been pricing it.

What is not in the reporting

The Reuters account, as relayed, does not specify the currency of payment, the routing of funds, or whether the transfer cleared the US dollar correspondent system. Those details would determine whether the payment is exposed to US Treasury sanctions enforcement and whether secondary-sanctions risk attaches to any institution that handled it.

The reporting also does not characterise whether the US government was informed of the arrangement at the time, before the fact, or only after. A US administration that was knowingly briefed on a multibillion-dollar Gulf-state payment to Iran would be operating under a different set of facts than one that learned about it through press disclosure.

Neither the UAE government nor the IRGC has publicly responded as of this writing. The desk will update on direct attribution.

What to watch

Three signals would clarify the picture. Whether the UAE confirms, denies, or declines to address the report. Whether US Treasury officials open or signal a review of the transactions, which would indicate the payment was not pre-coordinated with Washington. And whether the disclosure changes the cadence of the formal US-Iran negotiation — either by hardening Tehran’s terms now that its reserves position has been documented, or by accelerating the US push to lock text before further parallel arrangements surface.

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David Mitchell covers diplomacy and international security for the America Strikes Desk.