UAE demands guarantees before mending Qatar ties

UAE State Minister for Foreign Affairs Anwar Mohammed Gargash takes his seat before a meeting in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah on September 6, 2010 (AFP)
Updated 06 June 2017
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UAE demands guarantees before mending Qatar ties

ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday that Qatar would need to provide a “guaranteed roadmap” before it would consider mending ties.
Along with neighboring Saudi Arabia and its closest allies, the UAE severed relations with Qatar on Monday, suspending all flights and giving Qataris 14 days to leave in the biggest diplomatic crisis to hit the region in years.
“We need a guaranteed roadmap to rebuild confidence after our covenants were broken,” UAE state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said on Twitter.
Gargash accused Doha of turning to “money and media and partisanship and extremism” in a series of tweets early Tuesday.
Qatar has denied the allegations.
Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen and the Maldives were also among the governments that severed ties.
A longtime ally of the United States, Qatar has been viewed with lingering suspicion by Washington and its Gulf neighbors over its close relations with Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
It hosts the largest US airbase in the region, which is crucial in the fight against Daesh group jihadists.
It is also set to host the 2022 football World Cup.
The rift among Washington’s Gulf allies comes less than a month after US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and called for a united Muslim front against extremism.
It follows weeks of rising tensions between Doha and its neighbors, including Qatari accusations of a concerted media campaign against the emirate and the alleged hacking of its official news agency.


5 bodies of migrants washed ashore in east of Libya’s capital Tripoli, police officer says

Updated 5 sec ago
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5 bodies of migrants washed ashore in east of Libya’s capital Tripoli, police officer says

TRIPOLI: At least five ‌bodies of migrants including two women have been washed ashore in َQasr Al-Akhyar, a coastal town in the east of Libya’s capital Tripoli, ​a police officer told Reuters on Saturday.
Hassan Al-Ghawil, head of investigations at the Qasr Al-Akhyar police station, said that according to people in the area, a child’s body washed ashore and because of the waves’ height the body returned to the sea, and the coast guard was asked to search for ‌it.
Ghawil said the ‌bodies are all dark-skinned people. ​The bodies ‌were ⁠found ​on Emhamid ⁠Al-Sharif shore in the western part of the town by people who reported to the police station.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean since the fall in 2011 of dictator Muammar Qaddafi to a ⁠NATO-backed uprising. Factional conflict has split the ‌country into western and eastern ‌factions since 2014.
Qasr Al-Akhyar is a ​coastal town some 73 ‌kilometers (45 miles) east of Tripoli.
Pictures were posted on the ‌Internet, and also seen by Reuters, showing the bodies of the migrants lying on the shore, where some were still within black inflatable lifebuoys.
“We reported to the Red Crescent ‌to recover the bodies,” said Ghawil. “The bodies we found are still intact and we ⁠think there ⁠are more bodies to wash ashore.”
Earlier this month, fifty-three migrants, including two babies, were dead or missing after a rubber boat carrying 55 people capsized off the coast of Zuwara town in western Tripoli, the International Organization for Migration said.
Last week, a UN report said migrants in Libya, including young girls, are at risk of being killed, tortured, raped or put into domestic slavery, calling for a moratorium on ​the return of migrant boats ​to the country until human rights are ensured.