Qatar, UAE Ministers Stand Their Ground on Crisis in Tweets
Qatar, UAE Ministers Stand Their Ground on Crisis in Tweets
(Bloomberg) --
Top officials from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar stood their ground on Twitter on the third anniversary of the rift between Gulf states.
Anwar Gargash, UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, said Gulf Cooperation Council affairs had changed, and there can be no return to the situation before the sparring with Qatar erupted. “I don’t see that the Qatari crisis on its third anniversary deserves comment,” he said in a tweet. “Paths have diverged.”
Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said shortly after that his country had always sought a civil dialog without conditions that respected sovereignty and international law. “These positions have not and will not change,” he said on Twitter.
Both, however, called for states to look toward the future.
Earlier this week, Kuwait, which has been acting as a mediator between Qatar and its Gulf Arab neighbors, said there is progress in resolving the standoff. The rift in relations started in June 2017, when Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Bahrain and Egypt abruptly severed diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar, citing links to militant groups -- which Qatar denies -- and closer ties with Iran.
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