Dubai: Diplomacy still remains a priority to resolve the crisis with Qatar in spite of Doha leaking the contents of list of demands submitted by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, said Dr Anwar Mohammad Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.
The act of leaking of the list of demands undermined mediation efforts being made by Kuwait, taking the crisis back to square one, Gargash said during a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Dubai.
“The mediators’ ability to shuttle between the parties and try and reach a common ground has been compromised by this leak,” he said. “Their success is very dependent on their ability to move but not in the public space.”
The 13-point list of demands from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE, include closing Al Jazeera television network, curbing ties with Iran, stop supporting terrorism and extremism, shutting a Turkish base and paying reparations. The demands are aimed at dismantling Qatar’s two-decade-old interventionist foreign policy, which has incensed its Arab neighbours.
Gargash reaffirmed that diplomacy will work but that requires the Qatari side to change its behaviour.
Thanking Kuwait for its mediation efforts, the minister said the alternative for Qatar if it fails to respond to the demands will not be escalation but separation. “We are not talking about changing the regime in Qatar, but changing its behaviour,” Gargash said.
Qatar should change its approach of supporting extremism and terrorism, he said adding that the Gulf and Egypt’s dispute with Qatar is not related to sovereignty but its support to terrorism.
“We hope that Qatar will recognise the consequences of its policy against neighbouring countries and that wisdom will prevail in Doha. What we are trying to do is just stopping Qatar from supporting terrorism and extremism,” the minister said.
“If the Qatari government managed to see wisdom, hear the voice of reason and started implementing the agreements between both sides, then there has to be guarantees and a control system for the implementation of these agreements,” Gargash said.
“We know that US and Europe have noticed this issue as these countries are affected by terrorism and extremism,” he said, adding that the Europeans are well aware of Qatar’s huge spending on extremist groups.
Qatar has not implemented any of the conditions in the agreements made with it several years ago, none of them has been implemented except for one, which is shutting down Al Jazeera Live in Egypt.
“Al Jazeera TV is a platform for promoting extremist agendas in the region,” Gargash said.
Since Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt severed their diplomatic relations with Qatar on June 5 and closed their airspace, airports and seaports to planes and ships registered in Qatar, Doha has been seeking assistance from Iran, Turkey and other capitals and has been using international media to ease the pressure and blame the other countries.
However, Manama, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have been firm in their demands to Qatar to change its attitudes and comply with the Riyadh Declaration that it signed in 2014 and which called for ending financial and media support for extremist and terrorist groups.
Gargash had said earlier that Qatar was again undermining an opportunity to address concerns about its support for extremism and terrorism and undermining regional stability.
“The crisis of the loss of trust in the brother is real, resulting from a trend that ranged from political adolescence to dangerous conspiracy and included systematic support for an extremist agenda and terrorist organisations,” Gargash had said on Twitter. “The role of the brother as a Trojan horse in the Gulf region, the source of funding, and the media and political platform for the agenda of extremism cannot be accepted.”
There were conditions that Qatar needed to meet, he added.
“There is a price for the years of conspiracy, just like getting reinstated in the neighbourhood has its cost.”
