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Qatar responds to ultimatum
On Monday, Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, travelled to Kuwait City to deliver a letter written by Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani responding to a list of demands from its Arab neighbours.
Details of the response have not been made public, but last week Qatar indicated it would not comply with the demands, arguing they were so extreme they seemed deliberately designed to be rejected.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt had agreed to extend the deadline for Qatar to accept the terms of an ultimatum to restore relations by two days following a request from Kuwait’s Emir who is acting as a mediator.
In a statement on Monday, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called the deadline extension and Qatar’s response “an important step in building confidence between the parties”.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ahmed Abu Zeid said that on Wednesday in Cairo, the four countries will discuss “future steps in dealing with Qatar as well as exchange of points of view and the evaluation of the existing international and regional contacts”.
In a coordinated move on 5 June, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing the Gulf state of supporting terrorism. These claims have been consistently rejected by Qatar.
On 22 June, they issued a 13-point list of demands to end the standoff and gave Qatar 10 days to comply. It reportedly includes stipulations that Doha close the broadcaster Al-Jazeera, significantly scale back cooperation with Iran, remove Turkish troops from Qatar, end contact with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and submit to monthly external compliance checks.
In related news, Israel’s Channel 2 news reported that senior Hamas military commander Saleh al-Arouri, who is believed by Israeli intelligence to have planned the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in the West Bank in the summer of 2014, has moved to Lebanon and is being hosted by Hezbollah. This follows reports that al-Arouri was expelled last month from Qatar.