Qatar’s Foreign Minister HE Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani has criticised Saudi Arabia and three other blockading countries for actions which he said were undermining mediation efforts backed by the US.
“We see there is a negative behaviour aimed at influencing the mediation, either through statements or through (media) leaks which they launch at critical moments,” HE Sheikh Mohamed told Al Jazeera late yesterday.
He reiterated the Qatari position that Doha was ready for dialogue on a range of issues of concern but that it would not negotiate over topics to do with internal affairs and that the boycott against it must be lifted.
In an interview with Washington Post HE the foreign minister lamented the “very long two months” since the start of the current Gulf crisis when four Arab countries severed diplomatic and trade ties and imposed a siege on Qatar on June 5.
He expressed Qatar’s eagerness for dialogue as an approach to settle the crisis, adding that it is a “victim of geopolitical bullying” by larger neighbours who are seeking “nothing short of the surrender of Qatari sovereignty,” the newspaper reported.
“They have no right to impose such measures against a country,” said the foreign minister, adding that if the siege nations are not held accountable for their “illegal” actions toward Qatar, it would set an unhealthy precedent for smaller countries elsewhere.
“This is a high risk for world order, not just for Qatar,” HE Sheikh Mohamed said, noting that Qatar was caught in “a baseless conflict” fuelled by “disinformation.” That includes what he said was the initial spur for the crisis: A hack of Qatari state media by the UAE as US investigators found.
He said that anybody scanning the list of demands submitted to Qatar “would find it very offensive for a sovereign country to receive.”
HE Sheikh Mohamed said there is nothing “intrinsically wrong” with Qatar’s contact with political parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood, noting that the other Gulf states have their own links with Hamas and other Islamist groups, The Washington Post reported.
He insisted that Qatar has been working on curbing financing to terrorist and extremist groups in the region and was co-ordinating its efforts with the United States.
“They want to address those differences by blockading a country by violating international law and norms It doesn’t make sense,” the foreign minister said.
He also emphasised that there is “no special relationship” between Qatar and Iran, highlighting how bilateral trade between the UAE and Iran was exponentially greater than Qatar’s.
It was, he said, a marker of the “opportunism” of Qatar’s neighbours.
“It shows this issue isn’t about terrorism,” the minister said, but rather a reflection of how the four countries have labelled “whoever is their political opponent” as terrorists.
The foreign minister said he was in close communication with US Secretary of State Tillerson.
He played down any potential rift between Tillerson and US President Donald Trump regarding the Gulf crisis.
HE Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani
