Qatar must honour pledges — Arab bloc

Erdogan’s Gulf tour unlikely to defuse crisis

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini yesterday became the latest senior international figures to attempt to mediate or to boost mediation in the Gulf crisis.

Erdogan and Mogherini are not likely to make breakthroughs in the standoff between Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt on one side and Qatar on the other after the Quartet has made it clear that they were fully determined to secure Qatar’s full commitment to honouring the pledges it signed in 2013 and 2014 before they could consider a dialogue with Doha.

Erdogan has been a supporter of Doha’s stance since the beginning of the crisis and the countries boycotting Doha are unlikely to see his role as that of an impartial negotiator.

Officials from the four countries have repeatedly said that any resolution of the impasse must address all the key issues they have raised and that no drive from outside the Arabian Gulf would make them change their mind.

“Wisdom requires Doha to realise that the solution to the crisis is a Gulf one and that its key is Saudi Arabia,” UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Mohammad Gargash posted on his Twitter account. “Manoeuvring, arrogance and resorting to foreigners will take Qatar to nowhere.”

By undertaking the threenation Gulf tour, Erdogan hopes to have better luck than US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who were in the region in early July.

Erdogan who arrived yesterday in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on the first leg of the tour that will also take him to Kuwait and Qatar was received by King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz.

In neighbouring Kuwait, Mogherini held talks with Kuwait’s Emir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah.

Mogherini began the visit to Kuwait to express EU support of mediation efforts undertaken by Shaikh Sabah aimed at resolving the Gulf dispute, said a statement released by Kuwait News Agency.