UAE and Saudi add pressure on Qatar

‘The moment of truth is drawing near’, Gargash says, as Monday’s deadline looms for Qatar to meet list of demands

ABU DHABI // The UAE and Saudi Arabia increased pressure on Qatar yesterday, warning that “the moment of truth is drawing near” for Doha to make a decision on the 13 demands delivered by Gulf states and Egypt.

Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, described the situation for Qatar as “dire” as the Monday deadline looms for demands to be met.

“The moment of truth is drawing near,” Dr Gargash said. “We call on our brother to choose his element, to choose honesty and transparency in his dealings, and to realise that media clamour and ideological heroism are short-lived.”

Earlier yesterday, Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani condemned Riyadh’s refusal to negotiate the list of demands sent to Doha last week with a 10day deadline. “Our demands on Qatar are non-negotiable. It’s now up to Qatar to end its support for extremism and terrorism,” Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir wrote on Twitter.

Mr Al Jubeir said in Washington that his country would not ease the trade embargo on Qatar until all demands were met. The demands sent to Doha last week by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt include the scaling down of its relationship with Iran and the closure of its Al Jazeera news network.

The four countries are also demanding that Qatar agree to monthly audits on government finances and end its funding of terrorist organisations around the Middle East.

On Friday last week, Dr Gargash threatened Doha with “divorce” from the GCC if the demands were not met. Another option being considered are new sanctions on Qatar, the UAE ambassador to Russia said. The UAE and Saudi Arabia could ask their trading partners to choose between working with them or Doha, Omar Ghobash told The Guardian newspaper.

“There are certain economic sanctions we can take which are being considered right now,” Mr Ghobash said.

“One possibility would be to impose conditions on our own trading partners and say you want to work with us, then you have got to make a commercial choice.”

Mr Ghobash said the expulsion of Qatar from the GCC was “not the only sanction available”.

He also told CNN that Arabia Gulf countries had been bold in pinpointing extremist figures in Qatar in a list published this month.

Qatar’s foreign minister is also in Washington where he held talks with Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, on Tuesday.

Shortly after that, Mr Tillerson met Kuwait’s minister of state for cabinet affairs, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al Sabah, whose country has taken on the role of mediator in the crisis.

The list of demands “is contrary to the principles that govern international relations because you can’t just present lists of demands and refuse to negotiate”, Qatar’s foreign minister said yesterday.

But Dr Gargash stood firm in his comments on Twitter.

“We have long suffered Qatar’s conspiracy against our stability and witnessed its support for ideologies that aim to sow chaos in the Arab world. Enough. Return to reason,” he wrote.

The UAE says the expulsion of Qatar from the GCC is not the only sanction available