Gulf countries severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, opening up prospects for Israel

Фото: Depositphotos

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Yemen have announced a severance of diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing this state of supporting terrorism.

Doha called this decision unfounded, reports RFI.

The countries of the Persian Gulf explained the break in diplomatic relations with Qatar by the fact that this country supports the terrorist groups Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and also the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Qatar supports various terrorist groups in order to destabilize the situation in the region,” they said in Riyadh.

In Saudi Arabia, Doha is believed to “cooperate with terrorist groups supported by Iran in Al Qatif Province (in eastern Saudi Arabia), where the Shiite minority of the kingdom lives, as well as in Bahrain.

Qatar has also been expelled from the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia against the pro-Iranian Hussite rebels in Yemen. Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi welcomed this decision and also announced that it had broken off relations with Qatar.

In Qatar, the actions of neighbors were condemned, calling them groundless. The Foreign Ministry of the country stated that the goal of this decision, “taken in cooperation with Egypt”, is to put Qatar in a dependent position, violating its state sovereignty.

The rupture of diplomatic relations with Qatar was announced 2 weeks after Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh. Then the president of the United States She urged Arab countries to fight international terrorism together.

Major regional airlines have announced a halt in air traffic with Qatar, starting on Tuesday, 6 June. Airline Qatar Airways announced, in turn, the termination of flights in the direction of Saudi Arabia.

The border between Saudi Arabia and Qatar was also closed, the transportation of goods was suspended. Citizens of the three countries of the Persian Gulf were forbidden to go to Qatar. And the citizens of Qatar, tourists and residents, were ordered to leave these countries within 14 days. An exception was made for pilgrims traveling to holy places for Muslims in Saudi Arabia.

Bahrain and the UAE have demanded that their diplomats leave Qatar within 48 hours.

This diplomatic crisis in the Middle East has become the biggest since 1981, when the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf was established, which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

Such a decision of the Gulf countries opens up great opportunities for Israel in the fight against terrorism.

This was stated by the Minister of Defense of this country Avigdor Lieberman, speaking at a plenary session of the Knesset, the publication “NEWS».

“The Arab countries also understand that the main threat to the region is not Israel, Jews or Zionists, but terror. The Arab countries that severed diplomatic ties with Qatar did so not because of Israel or the Palestinian conflict, but because they fear terrorism, the basis of which is extremist Islam. President Trump in Saudi Arabia primarily spoke about a coalition against terror. Israel is a country that is ready to cooperate. The word belongs to the other side, the ball is in their field,” Lieberman emphasized.

He added that Israel’s international relations with Arab countries are in no way dependent on the Palestinian conflict.

“Any attempt to link the Palestinian conflict to Israel's international relations with moderate Arab countries is a misguided approach to the issue. The facts speak for themselves. We signed peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan without any connection to the Palestinian issue. Our relations with Arab countries cannot be conditioned by a solution to the Palestinian conflict,” the defense minister said.

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