Saudi Arabia expects a soon solution to the Qatar crisis if...

RIYADH – Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said that “if the brothers in Qatar commit themselves to addressing the security concerns that called on the four countries calling for combating terrorism to take the boycott decision, this would be good for the security and stability of the region.”

The Saudi minister was referring to the assertions of the four boycotting countries, in his talk about “security reasons”, to “support and finance terrorism.”

Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud’s statements came in a video-chat dialogue with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, according to the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs page on its Twitter account.

“We continue to work with our Qatari brothers, and we hope they will commit to working with us to solve the Gulf crisis,” he added.

He also said, “We hope … that we can find a way forward to address the legitimate security concerns that prompted us to make the decisions that we have taken,” adding, “I think there is a path towards that and we hope that we can find it in the near future.”

In response to a question about when to reach this solution, the Saudi foreign minister said, “The official is no more knowledgeable than the questioner.”

On the fifth of June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt decided to boycott Qatar diplomatically and economically, and took a series of decisive measures after it became clear to them that Doha is continuing with policies threatening national and Arab security, including secretly communicating with Guerin, which is carrying out destabilizing activities in the region and supporting and financing extremist groups. Hosting Brotherhood leaders for prosecution, providing safe havens for them, and harnessing media platforms, including Al Jazeera, to broadcast hate speech and extremism, in addition to establishing links with terrorist organizations in a number of countries in Africa and the Middle East.

The boycott decision came after the boycotting countries had exhausted all diplomatic efforts to dissuade Qatar from those policies and after the Gulf state broke the 2013 Riyadh Agreement.

The boycotting countries presented a list of 13 demands that Doha demanded to implement as a condition for re-normalizing relations, but Qatar refused to respond to those demands, saying that they constitute a “violation of its sovereignty.”

Doha stresses that it is necessary to solve the Gulf crisis through dialogue without any preconditions, and Kuwait mediated during the reign of the late Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah to resolve differences, but the Qatari leadership jumped on that mediation and embarrassed the Kuwaiti mediator by looking for external mediations, including the American mediation, and all ended in failure .

In another context, the Saudi minister said, “Wherever there are problems in the region, you find Iran,” explaining, “The policies of the Iranian organization and its proxies have led to a political and humanitarian crisis in brotherly Yemen.”

“Iran openly supports terrorist groups and cells and armed militias in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, and has even reached South America,” he added.

He pointed out that his country played a pivotal role in achieving peace between the countries of the Horn of Africa and supported the decisions of the Transitional Council in Sudan.