Mr. José Ramón Balaguer, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and Head of External Relations of the Party, met with Ambassador Rashed Mirza Al Mulla on Wednesday, 18 October 2017, at the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.
HE Mr. Al Mulla referred to the Gulf crisis, which started more than four months ago, with the piracy operation that hacked the Qatari News Agency. Such actions were performed by one of the four siege countries (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Arab Republic of Egypt).
Then the media of these countries began to broadcast false information attributed to the Emir of the country. Immediately, these countries decided to boycott and impose an air, sea and land blockade on the State of Qatar. HE Mr. Al Mulla said that the country's authorities were very surprised at these sudden decisions, which were based on allegations and lies, and are mainly aimed at exerting pressure on Doha to waive its national decision. He added that the State of Qatar has repeatedly tried to clarify the issue of piracy and fabrication of lies, but the four siege countries refused to communicate with them or listen to their explanations, in order to undermine confidence in the State of Qatar and its leadership and to delegitimize it. Furthermore, he said, the plan of these countries has even reached the stage of threats to change the regime in Doha.
The Ambassador stressed that the result was contrary to what they expected, as these events led to the increase of the confidence of the people of Qatar in their government leadership, and therefore, it has unified them. He also said that the crisis is a clear violation of human rights as it led to the severing of members of Gulf families -which are intertwined among themselves, from communication, in addition to the impact of the decisions on the students and workers from different Gulf countries to travel to these countries.
HE Mr. Al Mulla pointed out the 13 Demands submitted by the four countries to Qatar, which are then relinquished to become the Six Principles. Since the GCC countries blame Qatar for harboring and supporting terrorism, the Ambassador stressed that Qatar is very keen to combat terrorism in all its forms and with the testimony of a number of European and Arab countries. He said, for example, that shortly after the decisions on June 5th were made, the Pentagon praised "Qatar's permanent commitment to regional security."
He continued explaining Kuwait's position and praised the role played by the Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, in his mediation. He said that the four countries were not cooperative with this initiative and did not respond to it. However, he said that Qatar is overtly interested in making it a success and continues its efforts, in coordination with Kuwait, to sit for dialogue and to find solutions to this crisis. He added that Qatar has excelled diplomatically on its opponents, that the countries of the blockade committed a big strategic mistake in trying to impose its will on Qatar, and due to these decisions they are violating a legal system, and destabilizing the region –which is highly important to all the countries of the world.
The Ambassador also pointed out the position of the United States of America, and said that President Donald Trump initially expressed, through Twitter, his bias towards the embargo, in direct contradiction with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Pentagon, and then retracted it. A few weeks later, he telephoned the Emir of Qatar and offered him mediation.
The ambassador also said that the State of Qatar looks forward to the positioning of all the countries on this crisis, and to urge the four countries to follow the wisdom and agree to the Kuwaiti mediation, and sit at the dialogue table. In this regard, the Ambassador compared the crisis of the State of Qatar to the embargo that Cuba has been suffering for so many years.
From his side, Mr. Balaguer promised to convey the content of this meeting to the Cuban Foreign Ministry and the officials there.
He said that Cuba was keen to build and disseminate a culture of peace throughout the world, especially in the Middle East region, and stressed the commitment of the Government of Cuba to making the Latin American and Caribbean region a zone of peace. He spoke of the horrors of the war in Yemen, hoping that the conflict would end soon. He added that the United States of America is the only beneficiary of what is happening in the Gulf crisis, where it has a large military deal with Saudi Arabia.
Finally, he referred to the distinguished bilateral relations, in particular the health cooperation between the two countries, and said that he personally supervised the decision to establish the Cuban hospital in Dukhan.