Gargash tells Qatar: ‘resolve your issues instead of window-dressing’

The Turkish foreign minister, meanwhile, holds talks with his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al Sabah in a bid to help resolve the conflict between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours.

Dr Anwar Gargash, UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, says Qatar is trying to win a media race rather than solving its problem. Ravindranath K / The National

ABU DHABI // The UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs has urged Qatar to resolve its dispute with its Gulf neighbours “from the roots” instead of “window-dressing”.

“A crisis between a brother and his siblings shouldn’t be based on who gets ahead in the media race,” Dr Anwar Gargash tweeted on Thursday. “How do you lose a neighbour and relative, deluding yourself into thinking that he who is far, he who is in the ranks of Hizbollah, the extremist and the terrorist can ever be a source of support and a backbone?”

“The brother must resolve the crisis from the roots and not just window-dress,” Dr Gargash said on Twitter.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing Doha of sponsoring terrorism. Despite international mediation efforts, the crisis has not abated.

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday held talks with his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al Sabah in a bid to help resolve the conflict between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours.

Before their meeting in Kuwait, Mr Cavusoglu said he was planning to meet King Salman on Friday in Mecca.

“Although the kingdom is a party in this crisis, we know that King Salman is a party in resolving it,” the Turkish minister said.

“We want to hear the views of Saudi Arabia regarding possible solutions and will share with them our views in a transparent way ... We pay a great attention to our relations with them,” he said.

The crisis has put Turkey in a delicate position as Ankara regards Qatar as its chief ally in the Gulf but is also keen to maintain its improving relations with the key regional power Saudi Arabia.

Turkey is also eager to maintain relations with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional rival with whom critics say Qatar maintained excessively close ties.

The UAE and its allies will “fairly soon” provide a list to US officials of the specific steps they are demanding Qatar take in order for the crisis to be resolved, said the UAE Ambassador to Washington Yousef Al Otaiba on Tuesday. The specifics will fall within three broad categories: support for extremist groups and ideology; meddling in the internal affairs of neighbours; and Qatar-backed media that is used as a platform for attacking the UAE, Saudi, Bahrain and Egypt, he said.

The four countries have been joined by several other nations in taking action against Qatar over its support of extremist groups. One of Libya’s two rival governments this week called for a halt to oil exports from the country through the commodity trading firm Glencore, in which Qatar has an 8.5 per cent stake.

Abdullah Al Thini, head of the Tobruk-based government in eastern Libya, ordered a stop to crude shipments by, and the cancellation of all deals with, Glencore and any other companies associated with Qatar. The order could affect oil exports through the eastern port of Hariga, which is operated by the Arabian Gulf Oil Company, a unit of the National Oil Corporation (NOC).

The head of the eastern administration of the NOC last week accused Qatar of “financing terrorists” in Libya through Glencore’s sales of the country’s crude.

Libya’s eastern government, which rejects the legitimacy of a UN-backed administration in Tripoli, has also accused Qatar of supporting extremist militias in the country’s civil war.

* with additional reporting from Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg