Kuwait emir in talks amid crisis

Kuwait City : Kuwait emir yesterday received a top Saudi envoy and phoned Qatar’s ruler in an apparent mediation effort after the kingdom and several Gulf states severed ties with Doha.

The state-run KUNA news agency said Prince Khaled al-Faisal, an adviser to Saudi King Salman and the governor of Mecca, delivered a verbal message to Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah dealing with “bilateral relations... and the latest regional and international developments.”

It provided no details on the content of the message which comes on a day when Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain, along with Egypt, cut diplomatic ties with fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member Qatar.

Sheikh Sabah later called Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and “urged him for restraint and not to take any measure that could escalate” the situation.

The Kuwaiti ruler also phoned Sheikh Tamim to give “an opportunity to efforts aimed at containing tensions in the relations between brothers.”

Kuwait, a member of the six-nation GCC alliance, did not join other states in severing ties with Qatar.

The Kuwaiti ruler played a substantial role in a similar crisis in 2014 that eventually resolved the dispute between Qatar and its neighbours.

Sheikh Tamim made a courtesy visit to Kuwait last week on the occasion of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Kuwaiti lawmakers on Monday called on the government to launch mediation to resolve the latest spat in GCC relations.