QATAR: NO SURRENDER, NO CHANGE IN POLICIES

DOHA— Qatar said on Thursday it would not “surrender” and rejected any interference in its foreign policy, defying its Gulf neighbors in an escalating dispute over its alleged support for extremists.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said calls for a change in Qatari policy from Saudi Arabia and its allies, which cut diplomatic ties with Doha this week, were unacceptable.

“No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy,” Sheikh Mohammed said.

He also rejected “a military solution as an option” to resolving the crisis and said Qatar could survive “forever” despite the measures taken against it.

“We are not ready to surrender and will never be ready to surrender the independence of our foreign policy,” he told reporters. “No one will break us,” he said.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain led a string of countries that this week cut ties with Qatar over what they said is the emirate’s financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional archrival.

On Thursday the four countries issued a list of individuals and entities they said had “terrorist” links to Qatar.

The group said the list showed Qatar “announces fighting terrorism on one hand and finances and supports and hosts different terrorist organizations on the other hand.”

But the document contained at least two names already designated internationally as terrorist financiers and against whom Qatar took action.

The Arab countries closed air, sea and land links with Qatar.