Dubai: UAE Ambassador to the United States, Yousuf Al Otaiba, said Qatar is not serious in finding a solution to the current crisis with several Arab countries over its policies, including supporting terrorism.
Otaiba, in an interview with The Atlantic, described both extremism and terrorism, as well as Iran’s behaviour as the two main threats facing the region.
“We’re three months in now, and I’m more convinced than ever that they are not serious about sitting down and having a conversation about how this gets resolved,” Otaiba said.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt cut their diplomatic relations with Doha last June and demanded a series of steps by Qatar to end the crisis.
Commenting on the mediation to solve the crisis, Otaiba explained when General Anthony Zinni toured the region few weeks earlier, he heard once again the position from the four Arab countries, including the UAE.
“What we said to him was very consistent to what we said in the past: We’re ready to sit down and negotiate with the Qataris, provided they are willing to sit down and negotiate with us without any preconditions. The positions have not changed, and I do not think we’ve made any substantial progress on getting this resolved. What they’ve (Qataris) been saying is, we’re not going to sit down with you until you lift the blockade, and we’re like, that’s not going to happen,” said Otaiba.
The absence of a Qatari interest to end the crisis is due to the belief that Shaikh Tamim is not the one who is taking the final decision in Qatari politics, said Otaiba.
The UAE diplomat said, in his opinion, Shaikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani is “not fully in charge. It’s possible his parents continue to call the shots in Qatar,” and “I don’t think his father is interested (in ending the crisis). And I strongly believe that the father is still calling the shots”.
In answering a question on which constitutes a bigger threat to the Arab countries, Qatar or Iran, Otaiba said, “we face two threats in the region. One is Iran’s behaviour, and two is extremism and terrorism. For us, Hezbollah, Daesh, Al-Qaida, they’re all terrorist groups. We’re not going to distinguish whether you’re a Shiite or Sunni — if you are a threat to the stability of our country, you are a threat, regardless of your religious beliefs.”
“I put Iran’s behaviour as another category. Iran is a sovereign state. You see that their (Iran) behaviour is harming the region, you see that their support for terrorist and proxy groups is destabilising the region.”
Outside Iran, Qatar hosts the “second-largest number of designated terrorists in the world, including 59 people that we’ve just designated, of which 12 are on the US list and 14 are on the UN list, said UAE ambassador to Washington, DC.
Those designated terrorists living in Qatar are not in jails or under house arrests. Instead, they are moving freely and openly collecting money for other terrorist organisations, he said.
