Qatar told to repair split ‘from the roots’
Anwar Gargash urges isolated Gulf state to stop window dressing as Turks and Kuwaitis discuss ways to resolve crisis
ABU DHABI // The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs urged Qatar to resolve its dispute with its Gulf neighbours “from the roots”, instead of “window dressing”.
“A crisis between a brother and his siblings shouldn’t be based on who gets ahead in the media race,” Dr Anwar Gargash tweeted yesterday.
“How do you lose a neighbour and relative, deluding yourself into thinking that he who is far, he who is in the ranks of Hizbollah, the extremist and the terrorist can ever be a source of support and a backbone?
“The brother must resolve the crisis from the roots and not just window dress,” Dr Gargash said on Twitter.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing Doha of sponsoring terrorism. Despite international mediation efforts, the crisis has not abated.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu yesterday held talks with his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al Sabah in an attempt to help resolve the conflict between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours.
Before their meeting in Kuwait, Mr Cavusoglu said he was planning to meet King Salman today in Mecca.
“Although the kingdom is a party in this crisis, we know that King Salman is a party in resolving it,” the Turkish minister said.
“We want to hear the views of Saudi Arabia regarding possible solutions and will share with them our views in a transparent way ... we pay a great attention to our relations with them,” he said.
The crisis has put Turkey in a delicate position because Ankara regards Qatar as its chief ally in the Gulf but is also keen to maintain its improving relations with the key regional power, Saudi Arabia.
Turkey is also eager to maintain relations with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, with whom critics say Qatar maintained excessively close ties.
The UAE and its allies will “fairly soon” provide a list to US officials of the specific steps they are demanding Qatar take to allow for the crisis to be resolved, said the UAE Ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, on Tuesday. The specifics, he said, will fall within three broad categories: support for extremist groups and ideology; meddling in the internal affairs of neighbours; and Qatar-backed media that is used as a platform for attacking the UAE, Saudi, Bahrain and Egypt.
The four countries have been joined by several other nations in taking action against Qatar over its support of extremist groups. One of Libya’s two rival governments this week called for a halt to oil exports from the country through the commodity trading firm Glencore, in which Qatar has an 8.5 per cent stake.
Abdullah Al Thini, head of the Tobruk-based government in eastern Libya, ordered Arabian Gulf Oil Company ( Agoco), a unit of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), and other companies to stop crude exports and cancel all deals with Glencore and any other companies associated with Qatar. The order, which was posted on his cabinet’s website on Wednesday, could affect oil exports through the eastern port of Hariga, which is operated by Agoco. A spokesman for Agoco said yesterday that the port was operating normally, but the company’s board would meet in a few days to discuss the Mr Al Thinni’s order.
Last week Nagi Maghrabi, the chairman of the eastern administration of the NOC, accused Qatar of “financing terrorists” in Libya through Glencore’s sales of the country’s crude.
Libya’s eastern government, which rejects the legitimacy of a UN- backed administration in Tripoli, accused Qatar of supporting extremist militias in the country’s civil war that broke out in 2014. The Libyan National Army, which is loyal to the eastern government, last week presented documents and videos that it said confirmed Qatari deployments in Libya and Doha’s support for radical forces opposed to the LNA. A spokesman accused Qatar-backed Libyan militias of being behind an attempt to assassinate the LNA commander, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.