The arb file is not the correct file to use. That is for use within arb. As @colinbrislawn suggests you can download the fasta, and other files directly. For this, I'd highly recommend using RESCRIPt to download the files you need. Note: due to some recent changes, you may need :qiime2: version qiime2-2021.2.
You can follow the approach outlined in this thread: