Will Tillerson’s attempts to solve Qatari crisis succeed?

CAIRO – 3 August 2017: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is aiming to send a delegation to the Gulf in a third attempt to negotiate resolving the Qatari crisis, local media reported.

The attempt is part of previous rounds of mediations by Tillerson in July within the last month, but did not come up with any solid results.

The new attempt has raised questions on whether Tillerson would succeed to come up with a solution for the crisis of cutting ties with Qatar.

Commenting on the new attempt, the head of Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, Mohamed Al-Oraby, said that he does not expect that the U.S. would solve the crisis, saying that it is only “trying to pressure the Arab quartet to maintain their stances against Qatar through its attempts, although it indirectly appears to be pro-Qatar.”

Al-Oraby further said that the U.S. is keen to remain interactive with the crisis even if it did not contribute to resolving it, suggesting that “the U.S. could solve the issue by forcing Qatar to make a radical change in its policy, but I don’t expect this will happen in the near future."

Saad Gamal, the head of the Parliament’s Arab Affairs Committee, also agreed on the point that U.S. secretary of state’s attempt will not make any difference. ,“It will not produce results and if there were good intentions to solve the issue, the U.S. should have understood Kuwait’s mediation to end the crisis,” Gamal stated.

He further condemned the memorandum of understanding signed between the U.S. and Qatar on combating terrorism, saying that “it would have better focused on pressuring Qatar to accept the demands.”

Moreover, Tarek Radwan, member of the committee of Foreign Affairs, also said that renewed attempts by Tillerson to intervene in the Qatari crisis will make no difference; it only shows bias to Qatar, adding that these tours and negotiations in the Gulf have all failed.

The MPs comments agree that the attempt did not make any difference towards the crisis and implies support for Qatar in indirect means.

The U.S. secretary of state has made a number of attempts as a way of mediation to solve the Qatari crisis which began with his supervising a memorandum of understanding signed between the U.S. and Qatar on combating terrorism, and was followed by his visit to Gulf countries for three days to announce the start of U.S. moves in mediation to end the crisis. Tillerson was also keen to attend the first meeting of the foreign minister of the four Arab states.

The U.S. secretary of state will fly to Kuwait on Monday. Next week, he will meet with his Qatari counterpart.