Tillerson cancels trip to mediate on Qatar crisis
US official wants Doha to quickly deal with GCC concerns
ABU DHABI // US secretary of state Rex Tillerson has cancelled his trip to Mexico tomorrow to continue mediation in the GCC crisis.
The state department said Mr Tillerson would hold meetings with and call Gulf and regional leaders.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties and transport links to Qatar on June 5, because of Doha’s support for extremist ideology and terrorism. While US president Donald Trump has backed Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the crisis with Qatar, Mr Tillerson has been given the lead role in negotiations. He met Qatari, Saudi and Emirati ministers last week.
Mr Tillerson and the US defence department have called on Qatar to end the crisis. He has said that Doha must address its neighbours’ concerns more quickly.
The Saudi foreign minister has said that a list of specific steps Qatar must take to end the GCC crisis would be announced soon. “We are working on those with our Bahraini, Emirati and Egyptian partners to compile this list and present it to the Qataris, and I think it will be done fairly soon,” Adel Al Jubeir said after talks with British foreign secretary Boris Johnson on Friday.
London is also an ally of Qatar, the single largest source of natural gas imports into the UK.
Qatari officials say they have not received clear demands and they will refuse to take any steps that breach national sovereignty.
The countries that cut links with Doha say it must stop support for extremist, stop meddling in internal affairs of other GCC states, and stop using Qatar- backed media to criticise neighbours and provide a platform for Islamists.
Bahrain TV on Friday released recordings of phone calls between a top Qatari official and a Bahraini politician in March 2011, during an outbreak of protests in Bahrain.
The Bahrain News Agency said the conversations between by Hamad bin Khalifa Al Attiya, an adviser to the Qatari emir, and Hassan Sultan, a member of the now dissolved Al Wefaq political group, showed that they were “conspiring to spread chaos across the kingdom”.
Qatar yesterday admitted that the recordings were authentic, but claimed they had been misinterpreted.
Mr Al Jubeir on Friday also reiterated that the economic and travel boycott of Qatar, and ordering its citizens to leave the three GCC countries, was only aimed at coercing change in policies.
“We consider Qatar an ally in the GCC countries and we do not seek to harm Qatari citizens,” he said.
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in par- ticular have long been angered by Doha’s insistence on a foreign policy based on using the gains made by Islamist parties and militias after the Arab Spring to spread its own influence.
As those groups failed to take hold of power, Qatari emir Shiekh Tamim agreed to address similar concerns that led to diplomatic crisis in 2014.
But those promises, Saudi Arabia and the UAE say, have not been kept.
In talks with Russia’s foreign minister in Moscow on Friday, Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of State, said: “We have an opportunity to change Qatar’s behaviour and its support for extremism and terrorism.
“We are confident that the best solution is political and diplomatic, on the condition that Qatar would abide by the outcome of the 2013 Riyadh Agreement and its mechanism of implementation, as well as the supplementary agreement of 2014.”
With Mr Trump on their side, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pressed Washington to back their efforts to put pressure on Doha, and have suggested that more measures could be applied soon.
So far, despite Mr Tillerson’s efforts, there has been no breakthrough, and reports of a summit hosted by the secretary of state or the White House has not materialised.
“As far as we know, there is no summit taking place at this time,” state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Friday.