Qatar rejects as baseless terrorism blacklist by four Arab states, including Egypt

– UAE’s national postal service suspends all services to Qatar.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, who has said Gulf states could resolve the dispute among themselves without outside help, travelled to Muscat on Thursday to meet his Omani counterpart. On Wednesday, CNN reported that unnamed U.S. officials had linked Russian hackers to planting it. Turkey, like Qatar, has supported the Muslim Brotherhood, which led an elected government in Egypt in 2013 but was ousted from power by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Turkey will send warplanes and warships to Qatar after an initial deployment of troops at a base in Doha, the mass-circulation Hurriyet newspaper said on its website.

“We will not abandon our Qatari brothers”, Erdogan said.

“Certainly, we are there to protect and that’s one of the reasons that I want people to make sure we have a very, very strong force by paying the kind of money necessary to have that force, but yes absolutely I’d be committed to Article Five”, he said. Schaefer told reporters German diplomats were in touch with the state department and security council officials to clarify the U.S. stance.

Egypt and Bahrain increases pressure on Qatar over allegations that it interferes in the affairs of its neighbors by supporting and financing Islamist groups.

Several other countries later followed suit.

The list of detractors – who allege that the peninsular Gulf country is supporting “extremism” – now includes Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Maldives, Mauritania and Mauritius.

The US leadership vacuum has, however, opened the door for regional diplomacy, with Kuwait attempting to mediate the current crisis.

But despite his defiance, the foreign minister was adamant the crisis would not evolve into a military conflict.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have banned Al-Jazeera from the airwaves and closed the channel’s offices.

If successful in this showdown, the Middle East’s most reactionary rulers will have taken another step toward shutting down domestic political alternatives, whether moderate Islamists or liberal democrats, and blocking the rapprochement with Iran that ultimately will be needed to end the region’s wars. Western officials long have accused Qatar’s government of allowing or even encouraging the funding of some Sunni extremists, and the Qatari government has openly supported Hamas. After the diplomatic breakdown, Trump lambasted Qatar on Twitter, appearing to take credit for the Saudi-UAE decision.

The friction coincided with Qatar Airways’ efforts to establish a new airline operation, Al Maha, in Saudi Arabia. He said he hoped it would be the beginning of the end of funding terrorism.

Doha is a major worldwide travel hub, but flagship carrier Qatar Airways now flies increasingly over Iran and Turkey after being blocked elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Kuwaiti emir also went to the UAE and Qatar Wednesday for more consultations.

The president did not limit his call for greater action against terrorism to Qatar alone but instead urged “Qatar and other nations in the region to do more to combat terrorism and do it faster”.

A diplomatic source told TASS on Thursday the foreign ministers would focus on acute worldwide issues.

French President Emmanuel Macron has also reached out to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran in a bid to kick off negotiations.

– Kuwait’s emir left Saudi Arabia after what state news agency KUNA described as a “brotherly visit” but there was no word on the outcome of the talks with King Salman bin Abdulaziz on the rift.