Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen have severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing the country of backing terrorist groups. Qatar has called the move a "campaign of incitement" which is "based on lies."
07 June 2017
Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone conversation with the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in which he reaffirmed Russia’s firm position of pursuing dialogue and diplomacy as a means of settling crises. The conversation focused on Russian-Qatari cooperation, primarily in the trade, economic and investment areas, as well as the results of the meeting of the bilateral Intergovernmental Commission in April 2017, according to the Kremlin.
06 June 2017
The West African country of Mauritania, a member of the Arab League, has severed ties with Qatar, joining the Arab world’s biggest countries in Accusing Doha of supporting Islamist terrorists and Iran, Reuters reports.
“The state of Qatar has linked its policies ... in support of terrorist organizations and the propagation of extremist ideas,” said the foreign ministry’s statement published in Arabic by the Mauritanian Information Agency. “This has resulted in heavy losses to human life in these Arab countries, in Europe and throughout the world.”
Maersk, the world’s biggest container shipping line, has announced that it can no longer transport goods in or out of Qatar as a result of the trade restrictions imposed by neighboring Arab countries. The company is looking into other routes such as Oman.
The Philippines on Tuesday halted the deployment of workers to Qatar. Labor chief Silvestre Bello said Manila was taking precautions as it fears that problems like food shortages could affect the more than 200,000 Filipinos in Qatar should the crisis worsen.
“We are foreseeing a possible problem in Qatar,” Bello said. “We know for a fact that Qatar does not produce its own food. If anything happens that they run out of food and food riots will take place, definitely our [overseas Filipino workers]... will be the first victims,” he said as cited by AFP.
The French Foreign Ministry has stated that Paris wants the diplomatic row between Arab states and Qatar to be resolved through dialogue.
"France wishes that the current tensions are resolved through dialogue," the Foreign Ministry told reporters in a daily online briefing, as quoted by Reuters.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is scheduled to hold talk with his Saudi and Qatari counterparts later on Tuesday, and with a representative of Abu Dhabi's crown prince on Wednesday, according to the ministry. He will also travel to Egypt on Thursday.
US President Donald Trump has tweeted that during his trip to the Middle East, he "stated that there can no longer be funding of radical ideology," adding that "leaders pointed to Qatar."
Saudi Arabia has revoked the license of Qatar Airways and ordered its offices to close within 48 hours, Saudi SPA state agency reported.
“The General Authority of Civil Aviation has decided to cancel all licenses granted to Qatar Airways and to close all of its offices in the kingdom within 48 hours,” the statement said.
French Justice Minister Francois Bayrou said Paris should end tax breaks on property deals which are granted to nations, including Qatar.
“Under the responsibility of [President] Nicolas Sarkozy, France gave Qatar an incredible tax advantage,” Bayrou told BFM TV. “Can this situation continue? I don't think so. I think it's very important that in France we have tax fairness.”
Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber al-Sabah will travel to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks with King Salman over the recent diplomatic crisis with Qatar, Reuters reports.
Earlier Kuwait's leader held a phone conversation with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and urged him “to exercise self-restraint and refrain from steps that would escalate the situation,” Kuwaiti Kuna news agency said.
The United Arab Emirates said Qatar should provide a “guaranteed roadmap” before it would consider mending ties with Doha.
“We need a guaranteed roadmap to rebuild confidence after our covenants were broken,” UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted.
Algeria’s Foreign Ministry has urged Arab states to resolve their differences via dialogue.
“Algeria appeals for the need to observe, in all circumstances, the principles of good neighborliness and non-interference in the internal affairs of states,” the ministry told APS state news agency.
The Philippines has temporarily banned its residents from traveling to Qatar for work following the recent crisis, Labour Secretary Silvestre Bello said in a statement, as cited by Reuters.
“I temporarily suspend the deployment of our OFWs [overseas Filipino workers] in the county of Qatar. This is for us to be able to assess the situation because there are so many wild rumors going around, saying things are not going well there,” Bello said.
05 June 2017
Sudan has expressed “deep concern” over several Arab nations severing diplomatic ties with Qatar and has offered to mediate between all sides.
“The foreign ministry wishes to express its deep concern over this unfortunate development between brotherly Arab states close to the hearts of the Sudanese people,” Sudan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Egyptian Central Bank has rejected previous reports on its suspension of transactions in Qatari currency, the bank said in a statement cited by Reuters. Exchanging Qatari riyals to Egyptian pounds or other currencies won’t be affected either.
Qatar’s Al Udeid airbase, the US’ largest military base in the region, will continue to host US flights, the American military stated. “We've seen no impact to our operations and all flights continue as planned," US Air Forces Central Command spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart told Reuters.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called for “overcoming the difficulties at the negotiations table” during a phone conversation with his Qatari counterpart, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit has expressed concern over the simmering tensions and “the ramifications these differences will have on joint Arab work.”
Gheit, who also served as a former foreign minister of Egypt, urged the states to return to the agreements reached in 2014 after the previous rift between the Gulf nations and Qatar.
Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Saudi Arabia have been shut down, Saudi state media reports.
White sugar exports have been halted from UAE and Saudi Arabia to Qatar, according to trade sources cited by Reuters. The two export some 100,000 tonnes of white sugar to Qatar annually, with it being in high demand during the fasting month of Ramadan.
Egypt said it will indefinitely suspend all flights to and from Qatar starting on Tuesday morning at 6:00am Cairo time (4:00am GMT), Reuters reports citing the Civil Aviation Ministry. All Qatari aircraft will also be banned from Egyptian airspace.
“The ministry has issued a decision to halt all flights between Egypt and Qatar and to close off Egyptian airspace to Qatari aircrafts that seek to land or pass through,” the statement from the ministry reads.
Middle East analyst Marwa Osman traces the spat between the regional rivals Qatar and Saudi Arabia back to as early as the 1950s and believes the current development is “very risky, challenging for the entire region.”
“We started feeling the heat between Qatar and Saudi Arabia three month ago when the affiliates that are being funded by both states started bickering and fighting each other in Syria. That was the first mark that started a war of words between them which concluded in what happened today.
“But they surfaced at the beginning of the so-called Arab uprisings, and Arab Spring in 2011, that had a historical background. It did show that they challenged one another since the 2011 uprisings to take control of the MENA [Middle East, North Africa] region – who funds which group in which state starting from Tunisia ending up in Syria passing through Libya, obviously.
“But it all started in the 1950s. The main bickering of Saudi Arabia and Qatar started with the Saudi support for the Muslim Brotherhood and started from the Gulf War being enemies,” she said.
Egypt has ordered the Qatari ambassador to leave the country within 48 hours, and has recalled its charge d’affaires in Doha, according to the foreign ministry.
“The Qatari ambassador was summoned today and given formal notification of the expiry of his accreditation as an ambassador to Egypt, and was given 48 hours to leave the country,” a statement from the foreign ministry said, as cited by Reuters.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called for resolving the dispute in a “peaceful way.” Ankara “will provide every kind of support for the situation to be normalized,” he added, as quoted by AP.
“We see the stability in the Gulf region as our own unity and solidarity,” Reuters cited the minister as saying at a news conference. He emphasized Turkey’s intentions to help find a solution to the spat between “fraternal countries.”
Tehran has urged the Gulf nations to settle the current dispute through dialogue and diplomacy. "No country in the region will benefit from the heightened tension," Reuters cited Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Bahram Qasemi as saying on state TV. “They should adopt peaceful methods, transparent dialogue and diplomacy,” he added.
Several Egyptian banks have suspended dealings with Qatari financial organizations following the announcement of cutting diplomatic ties between the states, Reuters reports, citing four bankers from Cairo.
Qatar has asked its citizens in the United Arab Emirates to leave that country within 14 days, complying with the UAE's decision, the Qatari embassy announced, according to Reuters.
"Qatari citizens must leave the UAE within 14 days, in accordance with the statement issued by the concerned Emirati parties," the embassy tweeted.
It stated that those who cannot travel directly to Doha should go through Kuwait or Oman.
Moscow won’t meddle in Middle-Eastern affairs, said Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a joint press conference with his Belarusian counterpart in Moscow.
He noted that it is “these countries’ business, bilateral relations.” The minister stressed that Russia is interested in “maintaining friendly relationships with everyone, especially with the region, whose primary goal right now is to focus their efforts on combating our common threat of international terrorism.”
Saudi Arabian Airlines, also known as Saudia, has announced it is suspending flights to Qatar, following similar moves from Emirates, Etihad, and flydubai.
The Maldives has also cut ties with Qatar, according to Al Arabiya.
Libya’s eastern-based government has also cut diplomatic relations with Qatar, Foreign Minister Mohammed Dairi said, as cited by Reuters.
The government of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi says it cut ties with Qatar partly over its support of extremist groups in the war-torn country, which were “in contradiction with the goals announced by the countries supporting the legitimate government,” AP reports.
Qatar Airways has announced on its website that it has suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia, Reuters reports.
Emirates airline has announced the suspension of flight to Doha from Tuesday morning, following similar announcements from flydubai and Etihad, Al Arabiya reports.
Oil prices have risen after the moves against Qatar, Reuters reports.
Qatar is the world’s largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and a major seller of condensate – a low-density liquid fuel and refining product derived from natural gas.
Dubai-based budget airline flydubai says it will suspend flights to and from Doha, beginning Tuesday.
“From Tuesday 06 June 2017 all flydubai flights between Dubai and Doha will be suspended,” the airline wrote on Facebook.
Yemen has joined the list of nations cutting ties with Qatar, accusing it of working alongside its enemies in the country’s ongoing civil war, Al Arabiya and Reuters report, citing state news agency Saba.
“Qatar’s practices of dealing with the (Houthi) coup militias and supporting extremist groups became clear,” Yemen’s government said in a statement cited by Reuters.
It added that it supports the decision by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen to remove Qatar from its ranks.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry says the measures imposed by the Arab states are aimed at imposing guardianship on the country, Reuters reports.
Qatar says it is committed to the Charter of the Gulf Cooperation Council, adding that it respects the sovereignty of other countries and does not interfere in their affairs.
The decision by Arab states to cut ties with Qatar is not a solution to ending the crisis in the Middle East, the deputy chief of staff of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Hamid Aboutalebi, tweeted.
“The era of cutting diplomatic ties and closing borders… is not a way to resolve crisis… as I said before, aggression and occupation will have no result but instability,” he wrote.
Pakistan has no plans to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, the country’s foreign ministry has announced, according to Reuters.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry says it regrets the "unjustified" decision of Arab countries to cut ties, Al Jazeera reports.
"The measures are unjustified and are based on claims and allegations that have no basis in fact," the ministry said.
Qatar said the decisions would "not affect the normal lives of citizens and residents."
The breaking of diplomatic ties with Qatar comes after a leaked email between Hillary Clinton and John Podesta revealed in October 2016 that Clinton knew about Saudi and Qatari government funding for Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) “by August 2014.”
Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, said it will suspend flights to and from Doha from Tuesday morning until further notice. The last flight from Abu Dhabi to Doha will depart at 2:45am local time on Tuesday, according to an airline spokesman.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says he does not expect the breaking of diplomatic ties between Gulf states and Qatar to have "any significant impact" on the fight against terrorism across the globe.
"I think what we're witnessing is a growing list of some irritants in the region that have been there for some time," Tillerson said while speaking at a bilateral meeting with Australian officials in Sydney on Monday, as quoted by Reuters. "And obviously they have now bubbled up to a level that countries decided they needed to take action in an effort to have those differences addressed."
Egypt has accused Qatar of taking an “anti-Egyptian course” by supporting “terrorist” organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s state news agency reported.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have given Qatari nationals two weeks to leave their territory, Reuters reports.
The official state news agency of Saudi Arabia cited an official as saying Riyadh was cutting off relations and closing land, sea, and air ports with Qatar to protect its “national security from the dangers of terrorism and extremism.”
The UAE cut ties and gave Qatari diplomats 48 hours to leave the country, citing their “support funding and embrace of terrorist, extremist, and sectarian organizations,” state news agency WAM reported.
Bahrain will withdraw its diplomatic mission from the Qatari capital, Doha within 48 hours, according to the foreign ministry statement.
Bahrain has given Qatari diplomats 48 hours to leave the country, and said that airspace and ports between Bahrain and Qatar will be closed within 24 hours of the announcement.
Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry has issued a statement saying it is suspending diplomatic relations “in order to preserve its national security.” Bahrain blames Qatar’s “media incitement, support for armed terrorist activities, and funding linked to Iranian groups to carry out sabotage and spreading chaos in Bahrain.”