Delegates from more than 60 nations convened at Marseille’s Palais du Pharo on Wednesday for a two-day donor conference seeking $84 billion in pledges to rebuild infrastructure damaged during the Iran war, with French and German officials pressing Gulf capitals to shoulder the largest share of an effort that will define the postwar order in the Persian Gulf.

The conference, co-chaired by France and Japan and convened under United Nations auspices, opened with addresses from French President Emmanuel Macron, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, marking the first time since the April 15 ceasefire that an Iranian cabinet minister has appeared at a Western-hosted multilateral forum. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and a senior Yemeni delegation led by Foreign Minister Shaya al-Zindani also attended.

Organizers said the $84 billion figure, drawn from a joint World Bank and UN Development Programme damage assessment released April 28, covers a five-year horizon and is split roughly into $38 billion for Iran, $26 billion for Iraq, $14 billion for Yemen and the balance for regional refugee programs administered through UNHCR and the IOM. The assessment counted damage to roughly 4,200 buildings, 31 power-generation facilities, 12 ports and harbor installations and an estimated 2.1 million internally displaced persons.

“This is not charity, and it is not reparation,” Macron said in his opening remarks, delivered in French and English. “It is the foundation on which a durable peace will either stand or fall. Europe will not finance the reconstruction of the Middle East alone, but Europe will not be absent.”

Macron announced an initial French commitment of 4.2 billion euros, structured as a mix of grants and concessional loans channeled through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Germany followed with a 5.8 billion euro pledge, and Japan committed 720 billion yen, roughly $4.6 billion, focused on water, sanitation and port rehabilitation in Yemen and southern Iraq.

The most closely watched pledges, however, were expected from the Gulf Cooperation Council states, whose ministers were scheduled to address the plenary on Thursday morning. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, arriving Wednesday afternoon, told reporters that Riyadh would announce a “substantial” multiyear commitment but declined to confirm reports in the Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat that the kingdom was preparing a $15 billion package contingent on Iranian agreement to bilateral border and maritime confidence-building measures.

“The kingdom views reconstruction not as an isolated transaction but as part of a broader regional architecture,” Prince Faisal said. “Pledges will follow politics, and politics is moving.”

The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait were each expected to announce contributions in the $4 billion to $8 billion range, according to two European diplomats familiar with pre-conference consultations who spoke on condition of anonymity because the figures had not been formally tabled. A senior State Department official, briefing reporters in Marseille, said the United States would announce a $6.5 billion pledge focused on demining, civilian infrastructure and a regional small-business credit facility, with the bulk subject to congressional appropriation.

For the Trump administration, the conference represents a delicate balance. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the U.S. delegation, has spent recent weeks insisting that Washington would not finance Iranian reconstruction directly, and Treasury Department briefings have stressed that all U.S. funds will pass through multilateral channels and exclude Iran’s sovereign accounts. Republican lawmakers, including several who supported the war effort, have warned against any package that could be characterized as rewarding Tehran.

Iran’s participation was itself a point of contention. Araghchi, speaking through an interpreter, called the war “an aggression whose costs cannot be measured in dollars” but said his government welcomed humanitarian and civilian assistance “without political preconditions.” He did not directly respond to Saudi remarks about confidence-building measures, though Iranian state media later reported that Araghchi had met privately with Prince Faisal on the conference sidelines.

The two ministers’ encounter, the second known direct meeting between Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers since the ceasefire, lasted roughly 40 minutes, according to a French foreign ministry spokesperson. No joint statement was issued.

Aid organizations pressed for the pledges to come with stronger accountability mechanisms than past donor rounds. “We have watched conferences like this one fall short by 60 or 70 percent in actual disbursement,” said Layla Hassan, a Beirut-based regional analyst with the Carnegie Middle East Center. “The test in Marseille will not be the headline number on Thursday afternoon. It will be the disbursement schedule six months from now.”

UNHCR officials briefed delegates Wednesday on the displacement picture, reporting that approximately 1.3 million Iraqis, 480,000 Yemenis and 290,000 Iranians remained displaced from their homes as of May 1, with returns proceeding fastest in central Iraq and slowest in border regions of Yemen where unexploded ordnance has made resettlement hazardous. The agency’s High Commissioner, Filippo Grandi, called for at least $3.2 billion of any final package to be ring-fenced for refugee and IDP assistance over the next 18 months.

Reconstruction contracting will be coordinated through a new Marseille Compact secretariat to be housed at the EBRD’s London headquarters, with co-directors drawn from the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank. The structure, modeled loosely on the post-2003 Iraq reconstruction fund but with tighter procurement rules, is intended to channel pledges into project-level disbursements within 90 days of approval.

Markets responded modestly to the conference’s opening. Brent crude settled at $91.40 a barrel, down 80 cents on the session, while the euro firmed against the dollar on expectations that European pledges would lean heavily on grant financing rather than loans. Construction and engineering equities listed in Paris and Frankfurt traded broadly higher.

Final pledge totals are expected to be announced Thursday evening at a closing session, with a joint communiqué to follow. Macron, in his opening remarks, said co-chairs would also propose a follow-up donor meeting in Tokyo in early 2027 to assess progress and address any shortfall.