The solution to the dispute between Qatar and the Saudi-led coalition is the focus of the visit of Jared Kushner, advisor to US President Donald Trump, who has been making it to the region since Wednesday, amid news that a breakthrough is approaching, even if partial, in the Gulf crisis.
Kushner began his Gulf tour by visiting Qatar and meeting its Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, without disclosing what happened in the meeting, except for referring to the discussion of “developments in the Middle East region.”
The second station of the US President’s advisor will be Saudi Arabia, where it is hoped that he will meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and talk with him about the Gulf crisis and a number of other issues.
The first sign of Kushner’s visit to the Gulf was reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday, which revealed that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are close to reaching a preliminary agreement to end their three-year conflict.
The agreement is expected to open the Saudi airspace and land borders to Qatar, and end the information war between the two countries, while taking other steps to build confidence as part of a detailed plan to gradually rebuild relations, according to the agency.
No compromises
Qatari journalist and analyst Abdullah Abdulaziz Al-Khater believes that any future agreement between Doha and the rest of the Gulf states will not include concessions from the Gulf emirate.
“If an agreement is reached, it will be in the form of basic understandings without addressing what happened at the beginning of the crisis,” he added in an interview with Al-Hurra, noting that Doha will also work to ensure that there is a margin of freedom for the Gulf states to make decisions, instead of uniqueness.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed relations with Qatar in June 2017 in the context of a wider political dispute over Doha’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, its relationship with Iran and other issues, which Doha denies.
The four countries also launched an economic boycott, preventing Qatar Airways flights from using its airspace, closing the small country’s only land borders with Saudi Arabia and preventing its ships from using its ports.
Al-Khater stresses that a breakthrough in the Gulf crisis depends mainly on going back four years ago, and not talking about what happened during the period that followed.
The Qatari analyst believes that “Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries see Qatar as a great gain for the Cooperation Council, and also for its potential role in compatibility with Turkey and why not Iran.”
He concludes by saying that “re-strengthening the Gulf Cooperation Council will give the countries of the region great power in the future, and this will not happen in the absence of Qatar.”
Insistence on demands
During the three years of the Gulf crisis, Qatar sought to develop its industry to secure self-sufficiency, compensated by the boycott of its neighbors. And it diverted its flights through Iran from Saudi Arabia.
Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The country is also home to the sprawling Al Udeid Air Force Base, which hosts about 10,000 US troops and the forward headquarters of the US Army Central Command.
This could be Kushner’s last trip to the region as President Donald Trump has only a few more weeks in office, as President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20.
The four countries presented a list of 13 demands as a condition for restoring their relations with Doha, which included closing the Turkish military base on Qatari territory, reducing ties with Iran, and closing Al-Jazeera.
Qatar rejected the boycotting countries’ demands, describing them as “unrealistic” and “unenforceable”, which led to a stalemate.
Saudi political researcher Ahmed al-Shehri says that the demands set by the boycotting countries are “legitimate and Qatar must deal with them seriously so that we can talk about resolving the Gulf crisis.”
In an interview with Al-Hurra, Al-Shehri ruled out the possibility of Kushner’s mediation succeeding in ending the crisis, adding that it “came late, because the administration of US President Donald Trump is in its last days, and he tried to achieve an achievement before leaving the White House.”
The Saudi researcher points out that “decision-makers do not deal with fleeting governments, given that there are consequences and guarantees that the US administration must provide for any prospective agreement, and this is not possible because Trump will leave the White House within a few weeks.”
The Trump administration’s efforts came after an earlier, unsuccessful, attempt by Kuwait to mediate between the two parties.
Before the outbreak of the crisis, relations between Qatar and its Saudi Arabian neighbor had been strained in recent years. Part of the tension is due to reports broadcast by the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel about events in the region and Doha’s support for demonstrations within the framework of the “Arab Spring”, especially in Egypt and Bahrain.
The two sides then exchanged accusations on other issues, from performing the Hajj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, to hacking accounts on the “Twitter” site.
The Gulf dispute caused the division of mixed families between the two countries, and arranged for Qatari companies more expenses, as well as contracting travel in the region and diplomatic efforts.
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