Bahrain: Doha looks to military escalation
Manama says accepting more Turkish troops to Qatari base runs against diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis
ABU DHABI // Bahrain’s foreign minister has accused Doha of seeking military escalation of the Gulf crisis days after Turkey sent extra troops to its base in Qatar.
“The foundation of the dispute with Qatar is diplomatic and security-oriented, never military,” Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa tweeted yesterday.
“Bringing in foreign armies and their armoured vehicles is a military escalation that Qatar has created.”
The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt have severed diplomatic ties with Doha as well as trade and travel links, and expelled Qatari citizens in the most serious internal crisis since the formation of the GCC.
The countries accuse Qatar of supporting Islamist and extremist groups, and seeking to undermine their security.
The four Arab countries delivered a list of 13 demands aimed at the heart of Qatar’s foreign policies, including the closure of the permanent Turkish military base that opened last year.
There were already about 100 troops at the base, but Ankara accelerated plans to send more in the middle of the dispute. Sheikh Tamim, the Qatari emir, has forged a close personal relationship with the Turkish president, and sent Qatari special forces to protect him after last summer’s coup attempt.
Turkey is Qatar’s most closely aligned strategic ally.
Qatar has used its key role as a natural gas supplier to countries around the world, and its partnership with the US, to put more pressure on Riyadh and its allies.
But Turkey’s symbolic military deployment has been, for Gulf officials, one of the most provocative outside moves.
Five armoured vehicles and 23 military service members arrived in Doha on Thursday. The number of troops could reach 1,000 and there is the possibility of Ankara sending an air force contingent.
Turkey’s defence minister, Fikri Isik, said last week that Ankara would not be closing the base.
Qatar already hosts the largest US military base in the region, home to the forward headquarters of US Central Command, and the most important element in its relationship with Washington.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran have stepped in to increase exports to Qatar of food, and supplies to sustain Doha’s unrelenting pace of construction for the 2022 Fifa World Cup.
Saudi and UAE ties with Turkey and Qatar frayed significantly after the 2011 Arab Spring, when the two countries supported Islamist movements across the region.
But Saudi Arabia’s King Salman sought to mend relations and form a united front against Iran, which Turkey also considers a rival and has opposed in Syria.
Tehran has relished the opportunity to drive a wedge between GCC members to weaken the bloc that was formed in 1981 in response to the Iranian revolution and the fears it sparked about Tehran’s regional intentions.
On Sunday, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani called Sheikh Tamim and said that the economic isolation of Qatar was “unacceptable”, and that Iran “stands with the Qatari nation and government”. Qatar, which shares the world’s largest natural gasfield with Iran, is also accused by the Saudi Arabia-led group of countries of not backing Riyadh’s position on Iran.
One of the group’s demands is a reduction in Doha’s relations with Tehran.
Iran is happy to see a new front open in regional alignments “thereby shattering the display of GCC unity as well as expose Trump’s management of his regional relationships”, said Sanam Vakil, an associate fellow at Chatham House who studies relations between the GCC and Iran.
Ms Vakil said that the dispute “provides Iran with short-term political capital in terms of helping Qatar in a time of need and a long term playing card to keep up its sleeve should the regional fight impact Iran”.