The Gulf Crisis can have more impact on the regional stability, if not solved at the earliest, experts discussing the Gulf Crisis at the 12th Al Jazeera Forum highlighted on Saturday.

The forum opened at City Center Rotana with the chairman of the Board of the Al Jazeera Media Network Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani pointing to the very recent development of both North Korea and South Korea coming to the table to iron out their differences while Arab World is in engaged in divisions and conflicts.
The first session at the forum discussed the topic of “A year after the start of the Gulf crisis: outcomes and potential courses”. Dr Majed al-Ansari, professor of political sociology at Qatar University; Dr Faisal Abu Sulaib, associate professor of political science at Kuwait University; Dr Abdulla al-Ghailani, professor of social sciences at Oman Medical College; Cinzia Bianco, senior analyst at Gulf State Analytics; and Mohamed Si Bachir, professor of political science at the L'Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Sciences Politiques took part in the discussion.
The speakers discussed the outcomes and consequences of the Gulf crisis, which is ongoing for more than 10 months. Though all the panelists rejected the possibility of any military action, they noted that the crisis has ramifications that can put the unity and development of the region at stake.
Dr al-Ansari said that everyone expected the collapse of the GCC owing to the crisis. “The GCC has not collapsed, as it did not have any influential political role to start with. It will still remain the hope of the Gulf people in the future. But the crisis was not limited to mere differences between the countries but rather, its impact has affected the relations among the Gulf people.” expalined Dr al-Ansari.
Dr Sulaib drew the attention to the Saudi-UAE influence on US decision-makers and Donald Trump administration’s way of dealing with the crisis as the US looks at the financial aspect in dealing with the region’s issues. He also pointed out that the US administration knows what it wants from the Gulf States, which in turn know what they need from the United States.
Al-Ghailani noted that the demands made by the blockading countries were never convincing and they were not the actual reasons for the crisis. He said “The blockading countries wanted a change in the foreign policy of Qatar as well as many other changes. The crisis at its root level is not new. It has historical evidence, such as assisting the attempted coup against the Qatari regime in 1996. There has always been an attack on Qatari sovereignty." Bianco and Bachir highlighted the issue and provided their perspectives on the topic.

Related Story