AMN
The Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar attended round-table talks yesterday ahead of a regional Gulf summit, in their first such encounter since Riyadh cut all ties with Doha.
Oman’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Yussef bin Alawi sat between Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir. The meeting is being held to prepare the agenda for the GCC annual summit in Kuwait City today.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, all Gulf Cooperation Council members, as well as Egypt on June 5 severed all political and economic relations with tiny gas-rich Qatar.
They accused Qatar of backing extremist groups, a charge it denied. There have been no contacts between the two sides since then.