Political expert: Qatar will not survive the Arab stance

CAIRO – 15 July 2017: Qatar is betting on escalating the Arab-Qatari rift to an international arena as it seeks to attract the stances of western countries, political expert Bashir Abdel Fatah said on Saturday.

Bashir Abdel Fatah, political analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Egypt Today that Qatar is courting western countries to change the course of the current diplomatic crisis between its administration and the Arab quartet and evade Arab boycott.

Abdel Fatah says that “U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson thought the crisis would be resolved by signing a memorandum of understanding with Qatar. However, he realized the four Arab countries would never abandon their demands from Qatar, and that adopting a pro-Qatar stand was not a good solution.”

He indicated that Qatar cannot survive the Arab countries’ boycott, adding that the four Arab nations may impose more sanctions against Doha if it insists on its stance.
Abdel Fatah sees Qatar’s resort to Turkey as an attempt to go around the Arab quartet’s demands.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Bahrain are combating terrorism and extremist groups in the region. On June 5, they cut ties with Qatar on charges of supporting and funding terrorist groups and harboring extremists.

Qatar received a list of 13 demands from the four Arab countries through the Kuwaiti mediator, but it declined the demands to dry up terrorism sources of funding.