Qatar, Saudi Arabia Say They’re Closer to Ending Gulf Rift - Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia and Qatar said on Friday they were making progress toward ending a rift that’s divided the Gulf Arab region for more than three years, nudged by a Trump administration keen to rack up foreign policy gains in its last days.
“We are hopeful that things will move in the right direction right now,” Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said in a virtual interview as part of the Mediterranean Dialogues conference. “We cannot predict whether it’s going to be imminent and it’s going to resolve the whole issue in one day.”
Later in the day, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan tweeted that he was looking forward to a successful outcome to Gulf reconciliation talks mediated by the U.S. and Kuwait.
The comments offer the first tentative confirmation that a diplomatic push to end the divisions, which have disrupted trade and travel in the world’s top oil-producing region, was nearing fruition. Talk of a potential breakthrough began to circulate this week following a visit from President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to the region.
Several people with knowledge of the talks said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are close to a preliminary rapprochement that may not initially include the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt -- the other three countries that severed diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar in June 2017. One person said a broader realignment remained a long way off as the underlying issues, such as Doha’s good relations with Tehran, remained unresolved.
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