Qatar hits out at Saudi ultimatum

DOHA, Qatar - Qatar on Saturday denounced a sweeping list of demands from Saudi Arabia and its allies in an escalating Gulf diplomatic crisis as unreasonable and an impingement on the emirate's sovereignty.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt want Qatar to meet the 13-point ultimatum in return for an end to a nearly three-week-old diplomatic and trade "blockade" of the emirate.

Qatar has been given 10 days to meet the demands, which apparently include a call to close down broadcaster Al-Jazeera, but Doha said the requests were unrealistic.

"This list of demands confirms what Qatar has said from the beginning - the illegal blockade has nothing to do with combating terrorism, it is about limiting Qatar's sovereignty, and outsourcing our foreign policy," Sheikh Saif bin Ahmed Al-Thani, head of Qatar's government communications office, said in a statement.

"The US secretary of state recently called upon the blockading nations to produce a list of grievances that was 'reasonable and actionable'.

"The British foreign secretary asked that the demands be 'measured and realistic'. This list does not satisfy that criteria."

The four Arab governments delivered the demands to Qatar through mediator Kuwait on Thursday, more than two weeks after severing all ties with the emirate and imposing an embargo.

The document has not been published but has been widely leaked and the demands are sweeping in their scope.

They include the closure of Al-Jazeera television, a long-standing source of conflict between Doha and neighboring countries which accuse it of fomenting regional strife.

Erdogan's support

Turkish President Tayyip Ergodan said on Sunday he backed Qatar's response, and said calls for a Turkish military base there to close were disrespectful.

Erdogan said Turkey appreciated and endorsed Qatar's response to the 13 demands. He said Turkey had offered to set up a military base in Saudi Arabia as well as Qatar, but Riyadh had not responded.

"Even though they still didn't come back to us on this, asking Turkey to pull back its troops (from Qatar) is disrespectful against Turkey," he said.

Afp - Reuters

(China Daily 06/26/2017 page12)