HE Mr. Roberto Blanco Dominguez, Director of North Africa and Middle East Department of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, met with HE Ambassador Rashed Mirza Al Mulla on Monday October 9th, 2017 at his office. The Ambassador updated him about the Gulf crisis. They also discussed issues of common interest.
The Ambassador explained the background of the Gulf crisis, which has been taken place for more than three months. The Gulf crisis began with the hacking of the Qatar News Agency site, and with the misinformation provided by the media from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, in which fabricated statements were attributed to His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Even though the State of Qatar has repeatedly tried to clarify this, those countries have refused to communicate with the Qatari government with the aim of undermining the confidence in the State of Qatar and its leadership. The Ambassador stressed that the result has been quite the opposite: these events increased the confidence of the Qatari people in their Government’s leadership. He also said that the crisis is a clear violation of human rights.
The Ambassador referred to the 13 demands submitted by the four countries to Qatar, that were then relinquished to become the Six principles, on the grounds that Qatar supports terrorism. Furthermore, the ambassador emphasized that Qatar is very keen to combat terrorism in all its forms, and also explained Kuwait's position and praised the role played by the emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah in his mediation. He claimed that the four countries did not respond or consider this initiative. However, he said that Qatar is interested in successfully solving the crisis and continues its efforts in coordination with Kuwait, to make these countries sit for dialogue, so as to find viable solutions to the current situation.
The ambassador also pointed out that the State of Qatar looks forward to the announcement by some countries of their positions on the crisis, and urged the four neighbor countries to follow the wisdom and accept the Kuwaiti mediation and sit at the dialogue table. In this regard, the Ambassador compared the embargo that affects Qatar with the one Cuba had suffered for many years.
Mr. Roberto Blanco Dominguez asked about the most recent actions regarding the crisis, whether there have been concrete steps taken by the countries that imposed the embargo. The Ambassador pointed out that Kuwaiti mediation is still in place and that the Emir of Kuwait has extended invitations to the leaders of the embargo countries to participate at the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting scheduled for December. He concluded saying that, so far, there is no news on whether this meeting will be held or not.