Qatar responds as deadline extended

Kuwait City : Qatar yesterday responded to a list of demands from Saudi Arabia and its allies after they agreed to give Doha another 48 hours to address their grievances.

Details of the response were not immediately available, but a Gulf official said that Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani had delivered it during a short visit to Kuwait, which is acting as a mediator in the crisis.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt had announced in the early hours of Monday they were pushing back a deadline for Qatar to agree to a list of 13 demands they issued on June 22.  A joint statement said they were extending the ultimatum, which had been due to expire at the end of the day on Sunday, at the request of Kuwait’s Amir.

The demands included Doha ending support for the Muslim Brotherhood, closing broadcaster Al-Jazeera, downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran and shutting down a Turkish military base in the emirate. 

Saudi Arabia and its allies announced on June 5 they were severing ties with Qatar, sparking the worst diplomatic crisis to hit the region in decades.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who began a tour of several Gulf states, has called for “serious dialogue” to end the crisis. “We are worried that the distrust and the disunity could weaken all the parties concerned as well as the entire peninsula,” said Gabriel, who will visit Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar. Though it is unclear what further steps will be taken if Qatar fails to meet the demands, UAE’s ambassador to Russia Omar Ghobash warned last week that further sanctions could be imposed.

As well as taking steps to expel Qatar from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, Riyadh and its allies could tell their economic partners to choose between business with them or with Doha, he told the Guardian. US Secretary of State Rex 

Trump spoke separately on Sunday with the Saudi King, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince and the Qatari emir on his concerns over the dispute, the White House said.