Kuwait holding negotiations with Saudi Arabia to end Persian Gulf diplomatic spat: Official
A high-ranking Kuwaiti official says his country is in talks with Saudi Arabia to help work out a solution to a diplomatic crisis in the Persian Gulf region, which has seen the Riyadh regime and a number of its allies impose a diplomatic and trade boycott against Qatar.
“Saudi Arabia is a great brotherly country and we do communicate with them at all times and places and on all issues,” Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khalid al-Hamad Al Sabah said at a news conference with his Dutch counterpart Steve Block in Kuwait City on Wednesday.
Kuwait has been playing a mediating role between Qatar and the Saudi-led boycotters since the outbreak of the crisis in 2017.
The remarks came a few days after Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said Doha is still counting on Kuwait and other regional powers to help solve the Persian Gulf crisis, and revive the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
“The (Kuwait) Emir has had a big leadership role in calming the situation which is highly appreciated by Qatar. We continue to count on the role of Kuwait and on the countries in the region to bring it (the GCC) back together,” Sheikh Mohammed said on Saturday.
“...We believe that we are more relevant as a bloc for those countries than we are separate and fragmented,” he added.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt all cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5 last year, after officially accusing it of “sponsoring terrorism.”
The administration of the Saudi-backed and former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Libya, the Maldives, Djibouti, Senegal and the Comoros later joined the camp in ending diplomatic ties with Doha. Jordan downgraded its diplomatic relations as well.
Doha said the decision to cut diplomatic ties was unjustified and based on false claims and assumptions.
On June 9, 2017, Qatar strongly dismissed allegations of supporting terrorism after the Saudi regime and its allies blacklisted dozens of individuals and entities purportedly associated with Doha.
Later that month, Saudi Arabia and its allies released a 13-point list of demands, including the closure of Al Jazeera television network and downgrade of relations with Iran, in return for the normalization of diplomatic relations with Doha.
The document containing the demands by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain also asked Qatar to sever all ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement.
Qatar rejected the demands as “unreasonable.”
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