‘Qatari media inciting citizens’

Media campaign against the GCC coincides with Qatar’s rapprochement with Iran, observers say

Attacks by Qatari media on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have suspiciously coincided with its rapprochement with Iran, Saudi reports said, citing observers in the region.

“While Qatar is moving forward publicly with its entente with Iran mainly following the reinstatement of the Qatari ambassador in Tehran, Qatari media is working on convincing people Doha should pull out of the GCC,” Saudi daily Okaz reported yesterday.

Qatar last week announced it was reinstating its ambassador to Tehran after he was recalled in January 2016 following Iranian attacks on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and on its consulate in Mashhad.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt on June 5 severed their diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar over its support for extremists and funding of terrorism.

The list of demands they issued to settle the crisis included curbing diplomatic ties with Iran, expelling members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from Qatar and cutting off joint military cooperation with Iran.

GCC membership

Qatari media welcomed the reinstatement of the diplomatic chief to Iran. They also published editorials and opinion pieces calling for reviewing Qatar’s membership in the GCC.

The GCC, set up in May 1981 in Abu Dhabi, is made up of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.

No member state has pulled out from, or been added to the original six, since the establishment of the alliance with significant political, military, economic, social and sports dimensions and weight.

On Tuesday, a report quoting an Iranian diplomat said that that Qatar’s Emir Shaikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani had decided to withdraw his country from the GCC, “but his advisers suggested he take more time to think about it.

Earlier this week, Bahrain’s information minister, Ali Bin Mohammad Al Romaihi, said that Qatari media was trying to distort the image of the GCC and to push for a local popular movement to call for a withdrawal from the six-country alliance.

“The current Qatari media policy deliberately concocts and fabricates fallacies in order to build up resentment among Qataris against the GCC and reduce its stature,” Al Romaihi said.