Qatar-Saudi Border Reopens After Thaw

Date: 09 January 2021 - 21:44

News ID: ۸۶۳۸۶

DOHA (Dispatches) – Qatar and Saudi Arabia reopened their land border Saturday, as they restore ties following a landmark deal to end a three-and-a-half-year rift.
Back in 2017, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt severed their ties with Qatar, faulting Doha’s relations with Iran, accusing it of supporting "terrorism” due to its backing of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas, and claiming that Doha was sowing regional instability.
The Saudi-led quartet called on Doha to downgrade its ties with Tehran and cease its support for the Islamic groups, as well as other excessive demands.
Qatar strongly rejected the terror allegations as an attack on its sovereignty and refused to yield to the demands, and the four Arab countries imposed a crippling blockade from land, sea, and air against the small peninsular country.
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”.
The UAE also announced the reopening of land, sea and air borders with Qatar, starting from Saturday, reported Sky News.
Qatar’s national carrier announced it has started to reroute some of its flights to travel through Saudi Arabia’s airspace after the kingdom reopened its air borders to the Persian Gulf country.
In a brief statement, Qatar Airways said that it had begun directing a number of its flights through Saudi airspace.