Gulf widens: 6 Arab states cut Qatar ties over terror

Internal matter, won’t impact India: MEA

Riyadh/New Delhi, June 5: Key Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt on Monday cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting extremism, in the biggest diplomatic crisis to hit the region in years.

Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and the Maldives joined Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Libya in severing relations with gas-rich Qatar, with Riyadh accusing Doha of supporting groups, including some backed by Iran, “that aim to destabilise the region”.

Qatar reacted with fury, denying any support for

New Delhi says it will maintain friendly ties with Qatar and other Gulf countries, home to 8m Indians

There are 7 lakh Indians in Qatar, and annual bilateral trade amounts to $18 billion

extremists and accusing its Gulf neighbours of seeking to put the country under “guardianship”.

India will not be impacted by the crisis, foreign affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said on Monday. Gulf countries are home to 8 million Indians and vital to India’s energy supply.

“There is no challenge arising out of this for us. This is an internal matter of GCC (Gulf Coordination Council). Our only concern is about Indians there. We are trying to find out if any Indians are stuck there,” she told reporters.

There are about 700,000 Indians in Qatar. The size of the annual bilateral trade between two countries is $18bn.

In the wake of Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt cutting ties with Qatar after accusing it of supporting extremism, India said that it would maintain friendly ties with both sides, and said there would be no threat to any proposed investment by Qatar in India including reported plans by Qatar’s airline Qatar Airways of launching a domestic airline in India.

Speaking at a briefing on Monday, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said that there was no challenge to India from this situation, except concern about any Indian who may be stuck in the region due to travel restrictions imposed (by some countries) in the region.

She termed the dispute between the Saudi-led alliance on one side and Qatar on the other as an “internal matter of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)”. India will have to do a balancing act yet again in west Asia to maintain strong ties with both sides. In response to a question on the implications on India, she said, “There is no challenge to us from this situation.”