FM expresses eagerness for conciliation and talks

In a meeting with a group of journalists from The Washington Post, Qatari Foreign Minister HE Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani lamented what has been “a very long two months” for him and his colleagues. Since early June, four Arab countries - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt - have imposed a diplomatic and trade boycott of Qatar, which they accuse of colluding with extremist groups and seeking to destabilise its neighbours. Sheikh Mohamed and other Qatari leaders reject these allegations.The foreign minister speaking at The Post’s offices in Washington on Monday, expressed eagerness for conciliation and dialogue. But he painted his country as a victim of geopolitical bullying, cornered by larger neighbours who are seeking nothing short of the surrender of Qatari sovereignty.“They have no right to impose such measures against a country,” said Sheikh Mohamed, adding that if the “blockading” 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,” said the foreign minister, who said his country was caught in “a baseless conflict” fuelled by “disinformation”. That includes what he suggested was the initial spur for the crisis: A hack of Qatari state media, now pinned by US investigators on the UAE, which planted false quotes attributed to the Qatari Emir that helped trigger the spat with other  Gulf states.In the latest bid to broker some form of truce, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Saudi Arabia over the weekend and then arrived in Doha on Monday. Turkish officials said they’re pushing for direct talks between Qatar and the quartet of Arab countries . At present, the emir of Kuwait has played the role of intermediary. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has worked fitfully behind the scenes to mediate the dispute, but was initially hamstrung by mixed messaging from the White House, with President Trump appearing to take the side of Qatar’s adversaries.Sheikh Mohamed said in his interview with The Washington Post that he was in close communication with Tillerson. He played down any potential rift between Tillerson and Trump, whom he said had spoken with the Qatari Emir and indicated that Tillerson was “the only one in charge” of resolving the crisis.Nevertheless, the dispute has entered a tense, rumbling stalemate. The quartet initially delivered a list of 13 of demands — including calls for Qatar to shutter  Al Jazeera television network, sever ties with Iran and remove Turkish troops stationed on Qatari soil — that were rebuffed by Doha. Anybody scanning the ultimatum, Sheikh Mohamed said, “would find it very offensive for a sovereign country to receive such list of demands.”The quartet recently revised the demands into a set of “six principles,” which include getting Qatar to “refrain from interfering in the internal affairs” of its neighbours and supporting “illegal entities”.  They have compiled a “terror list” of some 89 individuals and entities “backed by Qatar” in countries as far-flung as Yemen and Libya.Sheikh Mohamed and other Qatari officials maintain that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with their courtship of a democratic political party like the Brotherhood, and pointed out that the other Gulf states have their own links with Hamas and other Islamist groups. He insisted that Qatar has been working on curbing financing to terrorist and extremist groups elsewhere in the region and was co-ordinating its efforts with Washington.The quartet, he said, has “ignored our denials” and chosen the path of “more and more escalation.” Analysts point to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s willingness to let this drag out until Doha comes to heel.“It is clear that the boycotting nations are prepared to play the long game with Qatar, but there is no doubt that a speedy resolution of the crisis will be in everyone’s interest,” said Mohamed Alyahya, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, to The National, an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper.But Qatar, one of the world’s richest nations per capita, has the ability to call their bluff. Although its land border with Saudi Arabia has been closed, it has flown in  new food supplies by using subsidies to Qatari businesses and from Turkey and Iran. “Qatar can sustain,” Sheikh Mohamed said.The foreign minister was incredulous about some of the other demands of the quartet. These included their objections to Al Jazeera. “They want to address those differences by blockading a country? By violating international law and norms? It doesn’t make sense,” he said .He also emphasised that there is “no special relationship” between Doha and Tehran, and pointed to how bilateral trade between the UAE and Iran was exponentially greater than Qatar’s. It was, he charged, a marker of the opportunism of Qatar’s neighbours.“It shows this issue isn’t about terrorism,” said Sheikh Mohamed, but rather a reflection of how Qatar’s adversaries have labelled “whoever is their political opponent” as terrorists.