Foreign minister insists Qatar has not been put under blockade,
Jubeir in US for talks with secretary of state as Saudi king speaks with Putin
ABU DHABI // The Saudi foreign minister insisted yesterday that Qatar is not under a blockade, as international mediation failed to make any breakthroughs.
Adel Al Jubeir said the decision by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to cut diplomatic, trade and travel ties with Qatar over its support of extremist groups was reasonable.
“There is no blockade of Qatar. Qatar is free to go. The ports are open, the airports are open,” Mr Al Jubeir said in Washington, alongside US secretary of state Rex Tillerson. “We have denied them use of our airspace and this is our sovereign right.”
He insisted this only applied to Qatari airways and that Qatar’s ports remained open.
“Qatar can move goods in and out whenever they want. They just cannot use our territorial waters,” Mr Al Jubeir said.
International powers yesterday stepped up their response to the crisis.
King Salman and Vladimir Putin spoke yesterday and Qatar’s closest ally Turkey again waded into the GCC crisis.
Russia, which has ties with all three of the Gulf’s most powerful countries, has been trying to mediate.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, defended Doha and called on the Saudi king to resolve the issue.
“Isolating a nation in all areas is inhumane and against Islamic values”, Mr Erdogan told a gathering of his party in Ankara.
“It’s as if a death penalty decision has been taken on Qatar.”
He said he would speak yesterday in a joint call with French president Emmanuel Macron and Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim to discuss the crisis.
In recent years France’s economic and military links with Doha have strengthened considerably, but for Turkey the embattled Gulf country has been a partner since the Arab Spring in backing Islamist parties and militias. Since, Mr Erdogan has repaired frayed ties with other GCC states, particularly Saudi Arabia, through mutual economic interests and greater alignment on the threat posed by Iran.
But the most severe GCC crisis since the bloc’s creation has badly tested Ankara’s position.
Mr Erdogan approved plans to quickly send more troops to Turkey’s new permanent base in Qatar, and has stepped up exports of basic goods as the country’s main border with Saudi Arabia and shipping links to the UAE have been suspended.
Qatar has been trying to capitalise on its strategic relationships with partners around the world, who depend on its natural gas exports, to increase pressure for a resolution.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr Anwar Gargash, criticised this attempt.
“After great efforts to internationalise the crisis between him and his brothers, and after much applause from his media and clamouring he’s been wronged, our brother will realise that the solution is in Riyadh, with King Salman,” he tweeted on Monday.
Pakistan’s prime minister, military chief and finance minister met King Salman and other Saudi officials in Jeddah on Monday. The Pakistani foreign office dismissed reports in Turkish media that it would be sending any troops to Qatar.
Jordan’s King Abdullah met the emir of Kuwait, who has been leading diplomacy efforts within the GCC. Kuwait and Oman have not cut ties with Doha.
The foreign power most likely to play a key role in any mediation efforts is Washington, which is still the most important relationship for each Gulf country. Donald Trump last week offered to mediate at the White House, although he has also repeatedly backed the Saudi and UAE measures aimed at bringing Doha into line with their policies on Islamist groups and Iran.
But the US secretaries of defence and state are the principals engaging the Gulf ministers. Yesterday the Qatari defence minister was in Washington for talks.
US officials have said that Qatar has made progress towards choking off private funding for extremist groups.
But they have also said much more needs to be done, and that Qatar continues to be a permissive environment for fund raising, with no progress on prosecuting terrorist financiers.
The UAE’s influential ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, wrote in an article published on Monday that Qatar’s close relations and investments in the US and other western countries while funding extremist groups “is a striking and dangerous contradiction”.
“Qatar invests billions of dollars in the US and Europe and then recycles the profits to support Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and groups linked to Al Qaeda,” Mr Al Otaiba wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
“Qatar hosts the American military base from which the US directs the regional war against extremism, yet it also owns media networks responsible for inciting many of the same extremists.”
For a resolution to be reached, Doha must stop funding extremism, stop interfering in internal affairs of GCC states, “and end its media incitement and radicalisation”.
Mr Al Otaiba also said the US airbase in Qatar was critical and that “while the current measures against Qatar remain in place, the UAE and America’s other friends in the region will continue working closely with the US military to sustain the base’s full war-fighting capabilities”.
The UAE aviation authority yesterday clarified its position with its air embargo on Qatar, saying the ban applied only to Qatari airlines or aircraft registered there.
Qatar Airways on Monday requested that the UN aviation body declare the blocking of Qatari flights through surrounding airspace a breach of a UN convention on international air travel.
‘ We have denied them use of our airspace, and this is our sovereign right Adel Al Jubeir Saudi foreign minister