Persian Gulf States Sign Deal at Summit

Date: 05 January 2021 - 21:58

News ID: ۸۶۲۶۳

RIYADH (Dispatches) – Persian Gulf leaders have signed a "solidarity and stability” agreement towards ending the diplomatic rift with Qatar at a summit in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has said.
The announcement came on Tuesday at the Persian Gulf Arab leaders meeting in Saudi Arabia, with the annual summit taking place amid a breakthrough in the dispute between a Saudi-led bloc and Qatar that started in June 2017.
"These efforts helped us reach the agreement of the Al-Ula statement that will be signed at this summit, where we affirm our Persian Gulf, Arab and Islamic solidarity and stability,” the crown prince told the meeting, thanking the United States and Kuwait for their mediation.
"There is a desperate need today to unite our efforts to promote our region and to confront challenges that surround us.”
Leaders of the six-member Persian Gulf Cooperation Council signed the Al-Ula declaration, named after the Saudi city where the summit is being held, and a final communique.
Their contents were not immediately released but hopes for a deal to end the impasse were raised overnight when Saudi Arabia announced it would open its borders to Qatar despite lingering issues between the neighbors.
"An agreement has been reached to open airspace and land and sea borders between Saudi Arabia and Qatar as of this evening,” Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Ahmad Nasser al-Sabah said on Kuwait TV ahead of a Persian Gulf Arab summit in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
The deal between Riyadh and Doha may put an end to the row in which Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic, trade and travel ties with Qatar in mid-2017.
The four boycotting countries had accused Qatar of supporting terrorism. Doha denies the charges and says the embargo aims to curtail its sovereignty.
Doha had been set 13 demands, ranging from closing Al Jazeera television and shuttering a Turkish base to cutting links to the Muslim Brotherhood and downgrading ties with Iran.
Qatar rebuffed the demands as "unreasonable.”
The blockade led Qatar to forge closer ties with Iran and Turkey in order to broaden its trade options or reroute its flights.