Trump says Gulf crisis can be ‘solved pretty quickly’ ‘Trump threats give Kim excuse to pursue nuke goals’

SHORTLY after addressing the United Nations General Assembly, US President Donald Trump and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met in New York to discuss the Gulf’s major diplomatic crisis.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Bahrain cut ties with Qatar and imposed a land, air and sea blockade on it, accusing Doha of supporting “terrorism”. Qatar has strongly and repeatedly denied the allegation.

The US president, who called the emir “a friend”, said after Tuesday’s meeting that he believed the dispute would be solved quickly.

“We are right now in a situation where we are trying to solve a problem in the Middle East and I think we will get it solved. I have a very strong feeling that it will be solved pretty quickly,” Trump told reporters.

For his part, Sheikh Tamim said Washington and Doha had “a very strong relationship”. Qatar is home to the largest US military base in the Middle East.

The Qatari emir also said that he believed Trump’s “interference will help a lot” in the dispute.

“We have always said that we are open to dialogue and we will always be open to dialogue,” he said.

Trump had initially sided with the Saudi-led group and called Qatar a “funder of terrorism”. Yet, some other US officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, adopted a more measured tone.

Over the past few weeks, Trump has also worked to broker a way out of the dispute, and in his meeting with Sheikh Tamim made no mention of his past claim that Qatar was funding “terrorism”.

Earlier on Tuesday, Sheikh Tamim criticised the countries behind the blockade on Qatar in his address to the UN General Assembly.

“The countries who imposed the blockade on the state of Qatar interfere in the internal affairs of many countries, and accuse all those who oppose them domestically and abroad US President Donald Trump’s highly-combative remarks against North Korea and its leader at the United Nations will only harden Pyongyang’s resolve to continue developing its nuclear programme, analysts have warned.

Using what was described as “unprecedented” language, Trump made his debut address at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday.

In a wide-ranging 45-minute speech, the most anticipated foreign policy address of his tenure, Trump vowed that the US would “totally destroy” North Korea if it is forced to defend itself or its allies.

He also mocked Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, saying: “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully, this will not be necessary.”

The sharp escalation in rhetoric came weeks after Trump warned that North Korea would be met with “fire and fury like the world had never seen” if it continues expanding its nuclear programme.

“I expected him to talk tough and strong — but I did not expect him to talk quite that tough and quite that strongly,” said Donald Kirk, a journalist and author of several books on Korea.

He said Trump’s remarks made the prospect of negotiations extremely unlikely.

“North Koreans are not going to back down — if

with terrorism. By doing they are inflicting damage on the war on terror,” he said.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned world leaders against war with North Korea, calling on them to take the threat of “nuclear peril” seriously. anything they are going to increase the tempo of their programme,” Kirk told Al Jazeera from South Korea’s capital, Seoul. “I think we can forget about North Korea saying, ‘let’s go to negotiations.’”

Kirk also said he expected that Trump’s fiery approach would not be adopted by other leaders who are otherwise highly critical of North Korea’s actions.

“We are in for some quite interesting questions here, and a lot of it is not going to be favourable to Trump,” he said. “I get the general impression that tensions will increase and the line is drawn ever deeper.”

Mark Farha, assistant professor of international relations at the Doha Institute, said that Trump had — once again — embraced an interventionist foreign policy.

“He did so gradually in the speech; in the beginning, he began in a more conciliatory manner, and towards the end, he adopted squarely a neoconservative line of regime change and war in fact,” Farha said.

“He is trying to square the circle, because . . . if you had a poll [in the US] 75 percent of people would be against escalation against Iran and North Korea, but here is Trump harking back to the neoconservatives.”

In his speech, Trump also attacked Iran, accusing it of being a “rogue state and a murderous regime”. He said the US could not abide by an agreement if it provided cover for the construction of a nuclear programme.

“We must not sleepwalk our way into war,” said Guterres on Tuesday at the annual summit of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.

“When tensions rise, so does the chance of miscalculation. Fiery talk can lead to fatal misunderstandings,” he said in his

Sultan Barakat, director at the Centre for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute, also said that Trump’s rhetoric had raised the stakes.

“North Korea now has the script and the excuse to why they need the [nuclear] programme,” he said. “If they haven’t got one they need to work very quickly to develop one if they have that direct threat.”

Barakat noted, however, that Trump’s comments about Iran were more worrisome. “With the current circumstances and the alliances he is building with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other nations, I fear there is more chance of him taking some further steps towards undermining Iran than North Korea,” said.

Trump has to certify in mid-October whether he believes Iran is abiding by a historic seven-nation agreement signed in 2015.

James Bays, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said Trump’s comments on Iran were nothing new, as he has made it clear time and again that he is against the pact.

“Yet, saying it in this setting, in front of world leaders, and calling the deal the worst and most one-sided transaction in US history and an embarrassment to the US, I think that really makes it hard now for Trump not to de-certify the deal and pull out of it — and that’s just what all the other players in the international community don’t want,” he said. — Al Jazeera

first state-of-the-world report since taking the top job at the UN on January 1.

“The solution must be political. This is a time for statesmanship.”

His message on “fiery” rhetoric was implicitly directed at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but also at Trump, who later warned of “totally destroying North Korea” if it does not back down.

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump told the UNGA, shortly after Guterres’ speech.

“‘Rocket Man’ is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary,” Trump added, referring to the North Korean leader with a nickname he gave last week on Twitter.

The UN Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions against North Korea since 2006 and Guterres appealed for the 15-member body to maintain its unity on Pyongyang.

Guterres, a former head of the UN refugee agency, also urged the Myanmar government to end the “vicious cycle of persecution, discrimination, radicalisation and violent repression” that has seen more than 400 000 Rohingya Muslims flee into neighbouring Bangladesh.

He called for the UN and humanitarian agencies to be allowed access to Rakhine to offer aid. Guterres also addressed the issue of global migration. The number of refugees on the move in the world can be managed with a global sharing of responsibility, he said.

“I myself am a migrant, as are many of you. But no one expected me to risk my life on a leaky boat or cross a desert in the back of a truck to find employment outside my country of birth,” Guterres said. “Safe migration cannot be limited to the global elite.” He also spoke about the climate change, calling on the world to “get off the path of suicidal emissions”.

“We know enough today to act. The science is unassailable,” he said, reiterating his message to global leaders to implement the Paris Agreement “with ever greater ambition”. — Al Jazeera