Iran's foreign ministry has condemned a joint US-GCC statement as interventionist and provocative, after Gulf foreign ministers and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio set out a hardened common position on Iran's missiles, drones and the Strait of Hormuz at a meeting in Manama, Iran's foreign ministry said on June 26.

The exchange exposes the gap between Tehran and the Persian Gulf over the shape of the post-war order, as the United States works to keep its Arab partners aligned behind the 60-day process to implement the memorandum that ended the war, and Iran presses its claim over the strait.

The Manama statement, co-chaired by Rubio and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani with foreign ministers from all six GCC states, welcomed the June 17 memorandum and recognised the mediation roles of Pakistan and Qatar, the US State Department said. The ministers stressed the shared objective of preventing Iran from ever developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon, and said lasting regional peace required addressing the full spectrum of Iran's threats, including its ballistic missiles, drones and support for proxies.

The Gulf ministers said future trade and investment with Iran would be conditional and reversible, contingent on Tehran's compliance with the memorandum and a final agreement, and on an end to what they called its destabilising behaviour.

On the strait, the statement said free, unconditional and unrestricted navigation remained essential to regional and global security, and the ministers rejected any tolls, fees or attempts to assert control over the waterway, welcoming Oman's establishment of a temporary corridor.

Rubio, on his Gulf tour, sought to play down the dispute over the strait, saying the distinction between a toll and a fee was a matter of semantics and that the United States would not do anything to undermine the security of its longstanding regional allies.

In its response, Iran's foreign ministry said the claim of a lasting US commitment to GCC security was rhetoric and an inversion of reality, arguing that the US military presence was a burden on the region's nations and a source of insecurity.

It said the US use of bases in regional countries to attack Iran during the war, between February 28 and April 8, showed Washington placed no value on the security of regional states.

The ministry condemned the characterisation of Iran's defensive capabilities as a threat, saying talk of its missile and drone programmes was irresponsible at a time when the United States had drawn Gulf states into an arms race. It rejected what it called a fabricated claim about Iran's peaceful nuclear programme and urged GCC governments to join Iran in pursuing a West Asia free of nuclear weapons.

On the Strait of Hormuz, the ministry said the waterway lay within the territorial waters of the two coastal states, Iran and Oman, and that clause 5 of the war-ending memorandum would be the basis for managing shipping there.

The ministry expressed regret at the GCC describing Palestinian and Lebanese resistance as Iranian proxy forces, and called on Gulf states to reconsider their approach to regional security, reiterating that collective security could only be achieved through cooperation among regional states without foreign interference.