The recent address of His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to the nation adequately dealt with the prevailing situation and specified future steps for the country, besides being a lesson for the blockading countries in terms of respecting national sovereignty.
The observations were made by HE Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, chairman of the Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah International Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Development, during an interview with the editor-in-chief of local Arabic daily Arrayah.
HE al-Attiyah said His Highness the Emir's speech highlighted the concepts of power, dignity and wisdom in dealing with the blockade and called for dialogue based on respect for national sovereignty.
He noted that the foreign ministries of the blockading nations failed to portray a negative image of Qatar despite making fabricated statements and shuttling around the world. They failed diplomatically and politically in marketing their lies about Qatar, he added.
"On the contrary, Arab, Islamic and GCC countries -- as well as the whole free world and international and regional organisations -- are standing in solidarity with Qatar," he pointed out.
In his opinion, the objective behind engineering the crisis and accusing Qatar of supporting terrorism was to push the country away from the regional and international role it had been playing as a mediator in dispute resolution efforts. Another aim was to tarnish the reputation of Qatar internationally and isolate it politically through bribing some countries to join the siege nations in their plans, which ultimately failed, he observed, describing the entire blockade issue as a "failed comedy" that is a product of "political adolescence". 
Pointing out that the blockading countries have different objectives behind imposing the embargo on Qatar, all of them face internal troubles that they want to cover up by creating an imaginary enemy. Further, HE al-Attiyah noted that the Saudi, Bahraini and Emirati media have, unfortunately, gone through ethical and professional degradation during the crisis. 
Regarding the negative role of the Arab League, he stressed that it has no role in resolving the disputes and troubles faced by Arab countries. Also, a number of economic and political agreements have been signed by the six member states of the Gulf Co-operation Council but with no application or implementation. 
Meanwhile, HE al-Attiyah said the demand of the siege countries to shut down Al Jazeera was a foolish one. In fact, it helped enhance the stature of the network and also got it unprecedented international support. He affirmed that Qatar has the right to build international relations in a manner that would help achieve its interests. It is also not logical that most GCC states have military bases of different western countries and Qatar is attacked for its military co-operation with Turkey, noting that the agreement was signed long before the blockade. 
He also wondered why Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE involved Egypt in the matter if they believed it is a GCC problem.
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