Arab quartet to meet in Bahrain on Gulf crisis

Cairo, July 28 (IANS) Led by Saudi Arabia, the four Arab countries that cut ties with Qatar over its backing of terrorism, will meet in Bahrain on Saturday "to watch Doha's seriousness in combating te

Cairo, July 28 (IANS) Led by Saudi Arabia, the four Arab countries that cut ties with Qatar over its backing of terrorism, will meet in Bahrain on Saturday “to watch Doha’s seriousness in combating terrorism”, Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt will hold a two-day meeting in Manama to evaluate the recent developments of Doha situation,” Foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmad Abu Zeid was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency on Friday.

The recurrent meetings of Foreign Ministers signalled the interest of the four countries for coordinating their stands and to watch Qatar’s commitment for stopping support for terrorism and negative intervention in other Arab countries’ internal affairs, the statement added.

The Arab bloc had severed diplomatic ties with Qatar early last month accusing Doha of supporting terrorism, interfering in their internal affairs and seeking closer ties with Iran, a Saudi rival.

Qatar had strongly denied the charges and rejected a list of 13 demands put forward by the bloc for resuming diplomatic ties.

Kuwait had been trying to mediate the crisis and several top Western diplomats had toured the region to try to defuse the row, including US Secretary of States Rex Tillerson.

On Thursday, Qatar’s Foreign Minister accused Gulf neighbours and Egypt of “stubbornness” in their ongoing diplomatic dispute and said the United Nations should step in to help resolve the crisis.

This is published unedited from the IANS feed.