UAE: US should consider moving air base out of Qatar
Doha must mend its ways: McCain
Ambassador Yousef Al-Otaiba of the UAE said Qatar’s neighbors would “fairly soon” give the US a list of specific actions Qatar must take before punitive steps are lifted. He said the list would likely include Qatari sanctions on bank accounts of individuals that Qatar’s neighbors have already sanctioned — and possibly on the banks themselves.
“We’ve gotten fed up. We’ve had enough,” Al-Otaiba said, adding that both his country and the US had allowed “bad behavior” by Qatar to continue for “a very long time.”
“If I want to be honest, I think the reason action hasn’t been taken against Qatar is because of the air base,” Al-Otaiba said, referring to Al-Udeid air base, not far from Doha. “The air base is a very nice insurance policy against any additional pressure.”
“Maybe someone in Congress should have a hearing and just say, you know, ‘Should we consider moving it?’” Al-Otaiba said. “And maybe not moving the entire base. Maybe just distribute to various countries so you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.”
Al-Otaiba told reporters that the UAE has not told the US it should consider moving the base, but is “willing to have that conversation.” And he suggested American troops could be moved to his country, instead.
Meanwhile, US Sen. John McCain said that “Qataris’ behavior has got to change.” He said it during a discussion at the Wall Street Journal CFO Network annual meeting in Washington.
“We can’t have Qataris funding Salafist organizations that are committing crimes to take American lives,” he said. “We just have certain fundamentals that are what America and democracy are all about.”
He urged US President Donald Trump to send Defense Secretary James Mattis to Doha “right away” so “he sorts this out,” adding: “He has been in the region for a long time, he knows these people.”
WASHINGTON: The US should consider moving its air base out of Qatar, the UAE ambassador to the US said Tuesday, encouraging the Trump administration to use its leverage to further pressure Qatar over alleged support for extremism.