Tillerson visits Gulf to defuse Qatar rift
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson heads for the Gulf on Monday for talks aimed at finding a breakthrough in the crisis over the cutoff of diplomatic and transport links with Qatar by Saudi Arabia and three regional allies.
The state department said Mr Tillerson, who forged extensive ties in the Gulf as CEO of ExxonMobil, will hold talks with leaders in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
He was in Istanbul for an international petroleum conference. RC Hammond, a senior adviser to Mr Tillerson, said he would explore ways to end a stalemate in the crisis following Qatar’s rejection of 13 demands that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt issued as conditions for ending their sanctions.
“The trips to Saudi Arabia and Qatar are about the art of the possible,” said Mr Hammond, who added that the 13 demands “are done” and “are not worth revisiting as a package. Individually there are things in there that could work.”
The demands included the closing of Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based pan-Arab television network, and a Turkish military base in Qatar.
Saudi Arabia and its backers, which accuse AlJazeera of being a platform for extremists and an agent of interference in their affairs, have threatened further sanctions against the emirate. Al Jazeera denies the allegations.