Qatar Airways closes Saudi and UAE offices

As Kuwait’s emir shuttled between Gulf capitals for talks, United States president Donald Trump offered to host a White House meeting if necessary, in a change of heart from his initial support for the Saudi-led boycott.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and others have severed diplomatic relations and cut off air, land and sea access to Qatar, in the most serious Gulf diplomatic crisis since the 1991 war against Iraq.

“I have never seen Qatari citizens stocking up on frozen chicken and long-life milks”, said Anup Manoj, an Indian man who works as a cleaner in Doha’s City Center Mall, where many shops no longer stock milk packaged by Saudi Arabia’s Almarai Co, the most affordable kind of milk in Qatar.

President Donald Trump changed course on Qatar Wednesday, a day after praising a move by other Gulf nations to sever diplomatic relations with Doha, which hosts a United States military base crucial to the fight against ISIS. The change in tone may have reflected Trump’s growing recognition of Qatar’s importance to the US; more than 11,000 USA and coalition forces are deployed to al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where missions in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan are overseen.

The countries also said they would eject Qatar’s diplomats.

(A tweet from the QNA account had quoted Qatar’s foreign minister as saying the country was recalling its ambassadors from neighbouring countries, including Saudi Arabia).

On the same day, the Saudi-run Al Arabiya carried a report titled ‘Proof that Qatar News Agency was not hacked ‘ and listed four supposed reasons the Qatari claim was false.

Throughout the interview, Sheikh Mohammed repeatedly denied that Qatar funded extremists and terrorist groups, the main reason given for this week’s moves against it.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, who has said Gulf states could resolve the dispute among themselves without outside help, traveled to Muscat on Thursday to meet his Omani counterpart.

But efforts to defuse the worst crisis among Gulf Arabs for two decades showed no immediate progress.

DUBAI: A senior UAE official on Thursday accused Qatar of escalating a row with its Arab neighbors by seeking help from Turkey and Iran in the dispute.

– Saudi Arabian ally Bahrain reiterates its demand for Doha to distance itself from Iran and stop support for “terrorist organisations”.

The Qatari Foreign Ministry rejected the accusations and expressed regret over the decision of the Gulf States to cut off the diplomatic ties with it.

The UAE attorney general said Wednesday that “any participation in conversation or social media or any other means that demonstrates sympathy to Qatar. may face a prison sentence of three to 15 years and a fine of no less than 500,000 dirhams ($136,000)”.

Al-Jazeera’s offices have been shut down by authorities in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Anxious residents have responded to the crisis by emptying grocery stores in the Qatari capital, Doha, as Saudi Arabia has blocked trucks carrying food from entering the country across its only land border.

Qatar’s foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani speaks to reporters in Doha, Qatar June 8, 2017.

– The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with the ruler of Qatar, urging dialogue amid a split between the Gulf state and other Arab countries.

The Qatar News Agency has been offline since the alleged hack occurred and it’s not clear if there was only one fake story planted, multiple, or any at all.