THIS time Donald Trump seemed to back his braggadocio with results. On September 7th he met the ruler of Kuwait, who has tried to mediate the three-month feud between Qatar and his Gulf neighbours led by Saudi Arabia. Mr Trump suggested a new mediator: himself. “I think you’d have a deal worked out very quickly,” he said. The next day Qatar’s emir made a surprise phone call to the Saudi crown prince, their first known talk since the crisis began.
But the rapprochement was fleeting. Hours after the call, Qatar’s state news agency said that Saudi Arabia had offered to appoint two envoys to negotiate a deal. But the Saudis were insulted. It was as if they had made the first concessions. Qatar’s report, they fumed, was a “distortion…of the facts.” Any further talks stalled. The call had made things worse.
The Saudis—along with Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates—cut ties with Qatar in June and cut transport links with the tiny peninsula....Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2wbMtOH
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