JEDDAH: Qatar claimed it is ready to sit at the negotiating table to try to end a dispute with its Gulf Arab neighbors.
“As you know we have had a siege of more than 100 days against Qatar,” Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani was quoted as saying by Reuters on Friday at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. “We spoke about Qatar’s readiness to sit at the table to solve this issue.”
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic and trade links with Qatar on June 5, accusing the major gas-exporting Gulf state of financing terrorism and cozying up to their arch-rival Iran. Doha denies the charges.
Previous attempts for negotiations have been thwarted by Doha's insistence to put conditions prior to the dialogue.
The Anti-Terror Quartet (ATQ), comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, has repeatedly welcomed the idea of sitting down for talks without any preconditions. Qatar never indicated any clear signs of doing so.
Merkel said she was concerned that there was still no solution to the crisis, adding she supported efforts by Kuwait and the United States to mediate an end to the dispute.