Kuwait, Oman try to end boycott between Arab Quartet and Qatar
By: Marwa Mahmoud
On 5th of June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt broke off diplomatic and transport links with Qatar through support for extremist groups.
The boycott took a heavy toll pof the small Emirate. It also cast a shadow over the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that includes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman.
During the last three years, Kuwait and Oman have so far tried to defuse the crisis without success. Kuwait’s efforts have recently been renewed.
“Regrettably, we are now in the fourth year of the Gulf disagreement,” the Kuwaiti premier said at a meeting with editors of local newspapers.
Kuwait and Oman continue their efforts to put an end to the Gulf rift and see “greater hopes than before” to overcome the years-long row, Kuwait’s Prime Minister Shaikh Sabah Al Khaled said on Wednesday.
“however attempts are still going on and hopes are bigger than they were before. We used to move one step ahead and go back 2 feet. But now, if we move forward a step, it’s followed by another step,” he added without any details.
“I ‘m extremely sure that all Gulf States can see GCC march as essential to them, to the region and to the world. That’s what we should establish on and use as a common ground to move forward to bridge the gap,” he said.
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Shaikh Ahmad Nasser Al Sabah visited Saudi Arabia last month to send messages from sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber to Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman. Although the content of the messages was not released, the Gulf crisis is believed to have been resolved.
The Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly revealed a raft of conditions for the restoration of the Doha’s relations .
The requests include a break in Qatar’s ties with militants and terrorist groups, a scaling-up of ties with Iran, and a shutdown of Al Jazeera TV, seen as the mouthpiece of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar has refused to comply with the conditions, saying that they are violating its sovereignty.