Maldives has a massive ocean territory and is a strategically relevant location. Kinda like Greenland. Every countries diplomacy includes proxy actions.
Turkey Donates TCG Volkan Missile Boat to Maldives, Raising Strategic Concerns for India (
Archive)
This is
United-States-PG2 so we don't have to get in the weeds on international monkey business. The Maldives is a Muslim country. Turkey (also Muslim) is "friendlier" with Qatar lately. Turkey and Qatar seem to prefer deescalating a potential attack on Iran. Saudi's and their proxies seem to lean in favor of Israel and allowing a strike on Iran to happen.
It's the Middle East, so it's a retarded mess. I don't want to end up talking about shit like Azerbaijan and Kuwait and end up going all the way back to Göbekli Tepe.
If there is any truth to the NYT article, it seems an imminent attack on Iran looks less likely in the short term.