Qatar isolation could last for years: UAE
Expulsion of Qataris from Gulf states comes into effect Qatar Financial Center plans no reprisals over sanctions Doha demands ‘blockade’ be lifted before Gulf crisis talks Turkish troops hold exercises in Qatar in show of support
PARIS/DUBAI: A senior UAE official said on Monday Qatar’s powerful Arab neighbors could continue to isolate it “for years” if it did not alter its foreign policy and said a list of their grievances would be completed in the next days.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on June 5 in the worst diplomatic crisis in the region in years.
The four countries accuse Qatar of fomenting instability in the Middle East, funding terrorism and cozying up to Iran, accusations that Qatar denies.
Kuwait is attempting to mediate, although scant progress has been made so far.
“The Kuwaiti mediation will be very useful and there will be demands coming,” Anwar Gargash, UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, told a small group of reporters in Paris. “Qatar will realize that this is a new state of affairs and isolation can last years.
“If they want to be isolated because of their perverted view of what their political role is, then let them be isolated. They are still in a phase of denial and anger.”
Gargash said the priority concern was in dealing with Doha’s links to Al-Qaeda-linked and other militant groups across the region as well as its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Hamas group.
He said a list of grievances Arab nations had with Qatar would be completed in the next few days.
“We don’t really see an escalation, but isolation. You are part of our team, but you keep scoring an own goal,” Gargash said, citing Qatar’s support of militant groups in Libya, Yemen and Syria.
Gargash said there was a risk Iran and Turkey would try to fill the vacuum caused by the rift, but urged Ankara, which has supported Doha, to be neutral.
“It’s early days. Turkey is trying to balance between its ideological zeal and its national interests. We are still in the phase and let’s hope they are wise and understand that it’s in their best interest... what we are doing,” he said.
Gargash, who was in Paris as part of efforts to lobby European allies to put pressure on Doha, said he believed that when Qatar did back down, there would be a need to monitor its activities in the region, something Western powers could undertake.
“There is no trust. So far it’s an idea to create a monitoring system... France, Britain, US or Germany could monitor because they have the diplomatic clout and technical know-how,” Gargash said.
The deadline for Qataris to leave neighboring Gulf Arab states came into effect Monday.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain announced on June 5 that Qatari residents would have 14 days to leave. They also urged their own citizens in Qatar to leave and threatened imprisonment and fines for anyone who criticizes the measures.
Officials later clarified there would be exceptions for mixednationality families in the Gulf, where tribes span across national borders. Saudi Arabia also said it would not bar Qataris wanting to perform pilgrimage to Makkah.
Prior to the diplomatic row, Qatari nationals could travel visa-free between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. Qatar has said it has no plans to expel Gulf nationals residing there.
Sheikh Saif bin Ahmed Al-Thani, director of Qatar’s Government Communications Office, said in a statement that the blockade, now entering its third week, is tearing at the social fabric of the Gulf.
“It is clear that the actions of the blockading nations have little to do with addressing legitimate grievances and everything to do with attacking Qatar’s image and reputation,” he said.
Also Monday, Federica Mogherini, EU foreign affairs chief, called for a de-escalation of the crisis.
“The region is already fragile enough, dangerous enough. We are starting to see dangerous spillovers already both in the broader region but also in Africa and in Asia, there are worrying signals,” she said in Luxembourg.
The Qatar Financial Center (QFC) does not plan to take any action against Saudi, Emirati or Bahraini firms in response to sanctions, the QFC’s chief executive told reporters on Monday.
“We do not intend to take any measures on any businesses in Qatar from the blockade countries. We have Saudi and Bahraini banks in the QFC,” Yousef Al-Jaida said.
“It remains business as usual, and we intend to keep it that way. There are five companies at the QFC from Saudi and Bahrain.”
Al-Jaida said institutions from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain had about $18 billion of short-term deposits in Qatari banks that would mature in two months.
If necessary, the Qatari government will step in to cover those funds if they are withdrawn, and other banks in the QFC are still providing short-term US dollar deposits to Qatar’s banking sector, he said.
“Whether the blockade countries make a decision on retracting those deposits is yet to be seen. Those mature in a couple of months, so there’s no impact as of yet. This is a measure we are paying close attention to,” Al-Jaida said.
“If that happens the government can step in. We witnessed a worse crisis in 2008, a financial crisis. If the need arises, the government will be able to step in and buy out the default portfolios of loans.”
Meanwhile, Qatar’s foreign minister on Monday called on neighboring states to lift their “blockade” of his country before Doha takes part in any negotiations on ending the crisis.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani called measures to isolate “an act of aggression,” adding that lifting them was a “pre-condition” for talks.
“We have to make it very clear for everyone, negotiations must be done in a civilized way and should have a solid basis and not under pressure or under blockade,” the minister told reporters in Doha.
“Qatar under blockade — there is no negotiation. They have to lift the blockade.”
Sheikh Mohammed said that Qatar had not received any demands from the Gulf states or from countries seeking a diplomatic solution, including Kuwait, the US, France and Britain.
“Why they didn’t submit their demands yet? For us, there is no clear answer for this,” he said.
“But what we have seen until now, there is no solid ground for these demands, that’s why they didn’t submit their demands yet.”
The foreign minister added that the economic impact on Qatar had so far proved minimal but added: “We are not claiming we are living in a perfect condition.”
“France, UK or the US — they are strong allies of Qatar and we have a great deal of cooperation together in terms of military, defense, security, economically,” said Sheikh Mohammed.
“So a blockade on Qatar and measures being taken against Qatar in this way is affecting the interests of those countries as well, directly.”
Separately, Qatar held military exercises with Turkish troops on Monday, demonstrating one of its few strong alliances.
Qatar’s state-funded pan-Arab news channel Al Jazeera showed footage of a column of armored personnel carriers moving through the streets.
It reported that additional Turkish troops had arrived in Qatar on Sunday for the exercises, although military sources in the region told Reuters the operation actually involved Turkish troops that were already present rather than new arrivals.
In another development, the Saudi chargé d'affaires in South Korea and the ambassadors of the UAE, Bahrain and of Egypt met in Seoul with Kyo Lee Jong, South Korea’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs. They gave a detailed explanation about the motives behind the action taken against Qatar.
They said the decision would not have been taken had there been no proven evidence of Doha’s support to terrorism, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
In Saudi Arabia, the international organization of Muslim scholars of the Muslim World League (MWL) issued a statement on the abuses of Qatar’s media against the nation’s scholars. It said the organization’s general secretariat denounced the media’s abuses being exploited to serve extremism.