Emirati diplomat to AP: ‘Nothing to negotiate’ with Qatar

“Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!”, Trump tweeted.

It has hosted Israel at its tennis tournaments and said that, should it win a spot, Israel would be welcome when it hosts the World Cup in 2022. Qatar says the accusations are without foundation, contradictory and unjustified.

Qatar long has denied funding extremists, and its foreign minister has struck a defiant tone in interviews, even after anxious residents emptied grocery stores in its capital of Doha. The crisis will increase inflation in Qatar, raise the risk of a credit rating downgrade and curtail regional banking activity.

Asked about the policies of US President Donald Trump in the Middle East, Gabriel said Germany did not support a policy of “pure confrontation” against Iran.

Indonesia on Wednesday said it had diverted Muslim pilgrims to Saudi Arabia to other airlines.

“After considering the reasons for the crisis between Egypt, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the kingdom of Bahrain and Qatar, the government has made a decision to lower its diplomatic representation with Qatar and cancel the licenses of Al Jazeera’s bureau in the kingdom”.

The FBI recently sent a team of investigators to Doha to help the Qatari government investigate the alleged hacking incident, Qatari and U.S. government officials say. Trump did not take a position, but appeared to suggest it was understandable to isolate Qatar.

Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, the Maldives and one of the competing administrations in Libya severed diplomatic ties with Qatar yesterday morning on the grounds that Doha supports terrorist groups in the Middle East.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, that Russia’s stance remains that crisis situations should be solved by politic and diplomatic means, “in dialogue”, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

Trump on Tuesday sided with a powerful block of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia in accusing Qatar of funding terrorists and cozying up to Iran. Erdogan, who has long tried to play the role of a regional power broker, said Ankara would do everything in its power to help end the regional crisis.

Qatar paid up to $1 billion in ransom to Iranian figures and affiliated Shia militias as well as to al-Qaeda linked jihadist groups in return for the release of members of its royal family kidnapped in Iraq, the Financial Times reported Monday. Perhaps Qatar will withdraw enough media and funding support for things the Saudis don’t like to buy them off, and everything will return to normal.

The dispute between Qatar and the Arab countries escalated after a recent hack of Qatar’s state-run news agency. Just days after top Trump officials said last month they would be okay with the Assad regime in Syria outlasting the civil war – another break with years of US policy – the Syrian regime allegedly launched its worse gas attack on civilians since 2013.

When asked whether it would attend the 2022 World Cup should it qualify, the Bahraini Embassy in London said “it serves no goal to respond to hypothetical questions”, and referred to a statement from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs which includes accusations of Qatari terror funding and an intention to topple the Bahraini government. Over 95 percent of Qatari imports come through the air and sea, and the Qatari private sector has contracts with suppliers in many countries and able to provide with the needs in competitive prices, Sheikh Khalifa said, adding that the losers were the exporters in the above mentioned three countries.

The Gulf countries ordered their citizens out of Qatar and gave Qataris overseas 14 days to return home to their peninsular nation, whose only land border is with Saudi Arabia.