Turkey’s top diplomat to push for an end to Gulf rift

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was sending his top diplomat to Qatar on Wednesday in a bid to broker an end to what he has called the inhumane behavior of neighboring Gulf States in severing ties with Doha and imposing sanctions.

Turkey has backed Qatar in a dispute that has ramifications across the Middle East, from Cairo to Baghdad, and raised concerns in Washington and Moscow. Doha denies accusations by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that it supports terrorism.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was scheduled to meet Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani during a visit also expected to take him to Saudi Arabia.

Qatar said on Wednesday it had withdrawn troops from the border between the east African states of Djibouti and Eritrea where the Gulf state has been acting as mediator in a border dispute. It gave no reasons for the move, but Djibouti had earlier downgraded its diplomatic ties with Qatar after the Gulf move against Doha.

Erdogan, in Turkey’s strongest comments since the rift began on June 5, denounced the isolation of Qatar as a violation of Islamic values and akin to a “death penalty.”

The measures against Qatar, which has a population of 2.7 million people but vast gas wealth, have disrupted imports of food and other materials and caused some foreign banks to scale back business.

Qatar, which imported 80 percent of its food from bigger Gulf Arab neighbors before the diplomatic shutdown, has been talking to Iran and Turkey to secure food and water.

Gulf Arab states have not made public any demands on Qatar but a journalist with the state- funded Al Jazeera network has shared a list that includes Qatar severing diplomatic ties with Iran and expelling members of the Palestinian Hamas group and the Muslim Brotherhood who live in Doha.

Turkey and Qatar have both provided support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and backed rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al- Assad.