UAE warns Qatar on GCC membership

LONDON: The United Arab Emirates warned Qatar on Monday it could not belong to the Gulf Cooperation Council if it undermined regional security, calling for a “change of behaviour” but not “regime change”.

“This is our message: You cannot be part of a regional organisation dedicated to strengthening mutual security and furthering mutual interest and at the same time undermine that security,” said Anwar Gargash, the UAE state minister for foreign affairs

“You can not be both our friend and a friend of al-Qaeda,” he said at the Chatham House international affairs think tank in London. Gargash repeated claims -denied by Qatar -- that the country funds extremists.

The Gulf crisis is the worst to hit the region since the establishment of the GCC in 1981.

“We’ve sent a message to Qatar. We’ve said we are not thereto escalate. We are not after regime change. We are after a change of behaviour,” Gargash said.

“We need to do that and when we do that, come back to the fold and we can work together,” he added. Gargash said there was a broader problem with financing for extremists in the Gulf but that countries like Saudi Arabia were “dealing with it”.

“The difference is that the Saudi government re ali se sit does have an issue and the Saudi government is acting over the last years to deal with this issue,” he said.