*** Foreign minister to visit Turkey | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN

Foreign minister to visit Turkey

AnkaraBahrain’s foreign minister will on Saturday visit Turkey, announced the Turkish foreign ministry in a statement. 

Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa will meet with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, as well as Erdogan to discuss the “latest developments in the region”, the ministry said in a statement.

The announcement came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ratified on Friday a bill approved by Turkish lawmakers to deploy troops to a Turkish base in Qatar. 

Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and other states this week in cutting ties with Qatar over emirate’s role in financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran. 

The Arab countries closed air, sea and land links with Qatar, barred the emirate’s planes from their airspace and ordered Qatari citizens out within 14 days.

The crisis escalated further after Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain released a list of 59 Qatari and Doha-based people and entities linked to “terrorism”.