US backs Qatar over blockade
QATAR: United States secretary of state Rex Tillerson gave his backing to the blockaded Gulf state of Qatar yesterday, signing a highly symbolic counterterrorism agreement with Doha and describing as ‘‘reasonable’’ its refusal to meet the hostile demands of its neighbours.
The ‘‘memorandum of understanding’’ was said to include measures against funding terrorism, which Qatar has been accused of doing.
It is one reason – cited by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain – for the blockade that has cut direct flights to Qatar and closed its only land border.
The timing of the agreement with the US could be significant, acting as a warning to Qatar’s four critics, all close Western allies, to back off in the dispute.
‘‘I think Qatar has been quite clear in its positions and I think very reasonable,’’ Tillerson said.
On the counterterrorism deal, he added: ‘‘The memorandum lays out a series of steps the two countries will take over the coming months and years to interrupt and disable terror financing flows and intensify counterterrorism activities globally.’’
Saudi Arabia won initial backing from President Donald Trump for the embargo against Qatar, when the president tweeted support after his visit to Riyadh in May, when he secured a commitment from Muslim states to fight terrorism.
However, Tillerson, and James Mattis, the US defence secretary, were more equivocal and warned against allowing the dispute to escalate out of control.
Qatar is home to an important US airbase, al-udeid. In another dig at Qatar’s critics, all of which were represented at the Riyadh summit, Tillerson said Qatar had been the first to respond to Trump’s demands.
Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, also implicitly sided with Qatar while on a trip to the region at the weekend, describing the blockade as unwelcome and urging a de-escalation.
Qatar rejected out of hand a list of 13 demands presented by its neighbours, including cutting support for political Islam and closing down the Al Jazeera television network.
The Saudi side has threatened more measures in retaliation, but it is not clear what these would be. It has ruled out military intervention.
Officials in Doha believe the Saudis and the Emiratis have tried to persuade companies that do business in all three countries to drop Qatar.
If that is the case, they received another blow yesterday.
The French energy company Total, at the announcement of a new contract to run the al-shaheen offshore oil field with Qatar Petroleum, said it intended to maintain production for many years.
Gulf officials are now resigned to the crisis becoming protracted.
The Qataris are confident of being able to withstand economic pressure, while the Saudi side thinks it has at least persuaded Doha to tone down its highly interventionist foreign policy.
– The Times