The ongoing escalation of the crisis surrounding the Gulf state of Qatar, now in its third week, is showing signs that it could last a good deal longer, with United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash even suggesting in statements made to the press during his recent visit to Paris that “the crisis could last for years.” His remarks gave the impression that the crisis could drag on indefinitely because of the Saudi-UAE determination to isolate Qatar while all the mediation efforts, Kuwaiti, Turkish or from other sources, fail to produce results and while Doha itself continues to dig in its heels and in the words of Qatari Foreign Minister Mohamed bin Abdul-Rahman Al-Thani refuses “to negotiate over its foreign policy.” The exchange of diplomatic fire in the Gulf crisis has also spread from foreign ministries and satellite television networks to international forums, since Riyadh, Manama and Abu Dhabi acting through Egyptian auspices have submitted a request to the UN Security Council to investigate charges that Qatar is involved in supporting terrorist organisations by paying ransoms for abducted Qatari citizens in Iraq. Such incidents have apparently been documented and have even been mentioned by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi in an official statement. Shortly before the Gulf crisis erupted, Al-Abadi announced that the Iraqi authorities had confiscated large sums of money in the possession of an advisor to the emir of Qatar who was about to hand it over to gunmen in Iraq in order to secure the release of kidnapped Qataris. In response to the Egyptian-Gulf action in the Security Council, the Qatari foreign minister has sent letters to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN human rights commissioner Zeid Raad Al-Hussein on the Gulf crisis and its impact on Qatar. Referring to Gargash's prediction, UAE political analyst Abdel-Khaleq Abdullah said the crisis was indeed likely to last, but that the duration would be primarily determined by how long it took Qatar to respond positively to the other Gulf countries' demands. “Time is of the essence. We don't want to escalate the crisis. We want to isolate Qatar,” he said. The UAE foreign minister also said that “Doha is angry and is in a state of denial.” He noted that a list of grievances against Qatar would be ready in a few days and added that “we suggest the creation of a western monitoring system to ascertain that Qatar changes its behaviour on terrorism.” An informed source in Cairo agreed that the crisis would not end “until radical changes are made in Qatari foreign policies.” This might not occur “without changes inside Qatar itself,” he added, alluding to decision-making centres in Doha. Doha has insisted that the embargo on the country must be lifted before any negotiations begin to resolve the crisis. In the meantime, it has declared that it is looking for alternatives in order to sit out the embargo if necessary. “We will depend on Oman, Kuwait and Turkey if the crisis continues,” the Qatari foreign minister said, adding that Iran had opened its airspace to Qatari flights. Reiterating Doha's vow that it would not “barter away” its foreign policy and the Al-Jazeera TV channel, he stressed that “Qatar will not negotiate with the Arab powers until the economic embargo is lifted.” He added that Doha had not yet received any demands from the countries that had severed diplomatic relations with it. The Turkish presence on the scene has increased with Doha's announcement that joint Qatari-Turkish military exercises have begun, and the UAE has called on Turkey to stop sitting on the fence and to side with the anti-Qatari axis. Ankara has not thus far responded to such appeals. The Iranian presence has further inflamed the diplomatic rhetoric and added more proof to accusations levelled against Qatar. The purpose of Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab-African affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari's recent trip to Qatar was to convey “messages of friendship from Iranian to Qatari officials,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said on Sunday. He furnished no details about the visit, but added that “it comes in the framework of resuming previous consultations with Qatari officials.” Political analyst Mohammed Arslan, a Kurdish activist from Turkey, told Al-Ahram Weekly that Turkey had been far from neutral from the outset of the Gulf crisis. “There is an organic link between Doha and Ankara, so the bias is obvious. The accusations regarding support for terrorism in Syria and other Arab countries from Egypt to Libya are common denominators in their pursuit of a single regional agenda,” he said. Arslan said that Turkey was pursuing a strategy of deepening the crisis in the Gulf, seeing this as a way of “preventing the flood from reaching Anatolia” because of the difficulties this would cause against the backdrop of the tensions and internal weaknesses in Turkey. “The accusations [Ankara] is airing to the effect that the UAE has ties with [exiled Turkish religious figure Fethullah] Gulen and supported last year's coup attempt in Turkey are an attempt to play for time. The map of the region is changing in the wake of US President Donald Trump's recent visit to Saudi Arabia. Qatar is out of the loop. Practically the whole world agrees on isolating it,” he said. On the Iranian position, Arslan said that Tehran had grasped an important message from the recent terrorist attacks in the country: its support for regional terrorism would blow back into Iran just as had occurred in the case of Turkey. The message was addressed to the Iranian Islamic Revolution since one of the targets of the terrorist attacks was the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the revolution, he said. Therefore, Iran had quickly moved to capitalise on the Gulf crisis and side with Qatar as a means to export its own domestic crisis. “The dynamics of the current interplay will change the entire picture of the Middle East. Success in regaining [the city of] Raqqa from the Islamic State (IS) group will put an end to the Turkish-Qatari role in Syria. Both countries fear the arrangements that will come into place after Raqqa is retaken,” Arslan concluded.
