Cairo: Egypt Sunday threatened unspecified steps against Qatar, a day after Cairo summoned the Qatari ambassador to protest Doha’s condemnation of a security crackdown on supporters of the deposed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.
“Summoning the ambassador ... reflects the serious stand of the Egyptian side,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabeel Fahmy. “This is the first step, which could be followed by others. All matters are under study,” he added without elaboration.
In November, Egypt expelled the Turkish ambassador and downgraded diplomatic ties with Ankara to the level of the charge d’affaires in response to pro-Mursi remarks made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Relations between Egypt and Qatar have deteriorated since July when the army toppled Mursi of whom Qatar is a staunch political and financial supporter.
Qatar, a gas-rich Gulf state, criticised on Friday a recent decision by the Egyptian authorities designating Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.
Egypt summoned the Qatari ambassador to protest what Cairo described as an “unacceptable interference in Egypt’s internal affairs”.
“The Qatari position is rejected in form and substance. It is not acceptable by any means for any foreign country, even if it is an Arab state, to meddle in the internal matters of another,” Fahmy said Sunday before starting a trip to Algeria.
He added that the Qatari stance hampered efforts by other Gulf countries to defuse tensions between Cairo and Doha.
Another Egyptian official said that summoning the Qatari diplomat came “after Doha has exceeded the limit”.
“The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has given a tough message to the ambassador and demanded that Qatar stop interfering in Egypt’s affairs,” the ministry’s spokesman Badr Abdul Ati told state television late Saturday.
Pro-government media hailed the Egyptian response. “A revolution of fury against Qatar,” proclaimed the headline of the state-owned newspaper Al Akhbar on Sunday.
Egyptian government and media have repeatedly accused Qatar and its TV network Al Jazeera of being biased to Mursi and the Brotherhood.
In a sign of growing strains, Egypt’s military-backed authorities have recently returned to Qatar deposits totalling $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) — offered when Mursi was in office — after Doha refused to renew them upon their maturity.
