US reduces the presence of staffers not deemed essential in the Middle
East as tensions rise
[June 12, 2025]
By MATTHEW LEE, TARA COPP and JON GAMBRELL
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is drawing down the presence of
staffers who are not deemed essential to operations in the Middle East
and their loved ones due to the potential for regional unrest, the State
Department and military said Wednesday.
The State Department said it has ordered the departure of all
nonessential personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad based on its
latest review and a commitment “to keeping Americans safe, both at home
and abroad.” The embassy already had been on limited staffing, and the
order will not affect a large number of personnel.
The department, however, also is authorizing the departure of
nonessential personnel and family members from Bahrain and Kuwait. That
gives them the option of leaving those countries at government expense
and with government assistance.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “has authorized the voluntary departure
of military dependents from locations” across the region, U.S. Central
Command said in a statement. The command “is monitoring the developing
tension in the Middle East.”
Speaking at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Wednesday evening,
President Donald Trump said, “They are being moved out, because it could
be a dangerous place, and we’ll see what happens. We’ve given notice to
move out, and we’ll see what happens.”
Tensions in the region have been rising in recent days as talks between
the U.S. and Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program appear to
have hit an impasse. The talks seek to limit Iran’s nuclear program in
exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions that
the U.S. has imposed on the Islamic Republic. Iran insists its nuclear
program is peaceful.
The next round of talks — the sixth — had been tentatively scheduled for
this weekend in Oman, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke on
condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic matters. However, those
officials said Wednesday that it looked increasingly unlikely that the
talks would happen.
Trump, who has previously said Israel or the U.S. could carry out
airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations failed,
gave a less-than-optimistic view about reaching a deal with Iran,
telling the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast that he was "getting
more and more less confident about” a deal.
“They seem to be delaying, and I think that’s a shame. I’m less
confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Something
happened to them," he said in the interview recorded Monday and released
Wednesday.
Iran’s mission to the U.N. posted on social media that “threats of
overwhelming force won’t change the facts.”
“Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, and U.S. militarism only fuels
instability,” the Iranian mission wrote.
Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh separately told
journalists Wednesday that he hoped talks with the U.S. would yield
results, though Tehran stood ready to respond.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the American Compass gala
in Washington, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
“If conflict is imposed on us, the opponent’s casualties will
certainly be more than ours, and in that case, America must leave
the region, because all its bases are within our reach,” he said.
“We have access to them, and we will target all of them in the host
countries without hesitation.”
Meanwhile, the Board of Governors at the International Atomic Energy
Agency was potentially set to vote on a measure to censure Iran.
That could set in motion an effort to snap back United Nations
sanctions on Iran via a measure in Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with
world powers that’s still active until October. Trump withdrew from
that agreement in his first term.
Earlier Wednesday, a statement from the United Kingdom Maritime
Trade Operations center, a Mideast-based effort overseen by the
British navy, issued a warning to ships in the region that it “has
been made aware of increased tensions within the region which could
lead to an escalation of military activity having a direct impact on
mariners.”
It urged caution in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the
Strait of Hormuz. It did not name Iran, though those waterways have
seen Iranian ship seizures and attacks in the past.
The top U.S. military officer for the Middle East, Gen. Erik Kurilla,
was scheduled to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee
on Thursday, but that testimony has now been postponed, according to
the committee’s website. The Pentagon has not commented on the
postponement.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s state-run Iraqi News Agency said in a statement
attributed to an unnamed government official that the evacuation of
some nonessential employees from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was
part of “procedures related to the U.S. diplomatic presence in a
number of Middle Eastern countries, not just Iraq” and that Iraqi
officials “have not recorded any security indicators that warrant an
evacuation.”
“We reiterate that all security indicators and briefings support the
escalating assessments of stability and the restoration of internal
security,” the statement said.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP writers
Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, Aamer Madhani in Washington
and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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