GCC Secretary-General hails restoration of ties between Qatar and Bahrain

TDT | Manama                                                

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com    

A new era for Middle East! The late-night decision by Bahrain and Qatar on Wednesday to mend a long-running diplomatic rift and re-establish ties was hailed as such.

The move, top officials said, was a major step to bolstering regional security and stability.

Welcoming the diplomatic thaw, in a statement yesterday, the Secretary General of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, Jasem Mohamed AlBudaiwi, said the decision would further strengthen the Gulf unity and the bonds of kinship shared by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations.

He stressed that the decision has the support of GCC leaders, and reflects the success of the second meeting of the Bahraini-Qatari Follow-up Committee held at the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf in Riyadh.

Bahrain had been the last holdout of four Arab nations that imposed a boycott on Qatar in 2017. In statements, the Bahraini and Qatari foreign ministries said the neighbours have decided to resume diplomatic relations.

The announcement comes close on the heels of last month’s landmark, Chinese-brokered announcement that Iran and Saudi Arabia will work towards resuming ties. Bahrain’s agreement on the reconciliation with Qatar, ministries said, follows talks at the Gulf Cooperation Council headquarters in Saudi Arabia and two years after an Arab boycott of Qatar was lifted.

The latest action also follows talks by His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, with Qatari leader, in January. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt, in June 2017, slapped a boycott on Qatar over claims it backed Islamist groups.

The quartet agreed to lift the restrictions at a summit in the Saudi desert city of Al-Ula, following a flurry of energetic diplomacy from the Trump administration. The four countries had banned Qatari planes and ships from using their airspace and territorial waters.

The reconciliation accord was sealed in January 2021. In a late-night statement on Wednesday, the Bahraini-Qatari Follow-up Committee after a meeting in Riyadh said they “decided to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries according to the principles of the United Nations charter and the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961.”

“The two sides affirmed that this step stems from the mutual desire to develop bilateral relations and enhance Gulf unity and integration,” it added. Qatar’s foreign ministry released a similar statement, the country’s state news agency reported. The three other states have already renewed relations, though the UAE and Qatar have yet to reopen their embassy.

On January 4, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Ahmad Nasser Al-Sabah announced on state television that a deal had been agreed to “open the airspace and land and sea borders between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Qatar”.