NATO dashes Qatar membership hopes

CAIRO – 6 June 2018: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) dashed Wednesday Qatar’s aspirations of becoming a full member of the intergovernmental military alliance.

The organization said that membership was reserved to the United States and Europe, as it responded to an overture by Qatari Defense Minister, Khalid Bin Mohamed Al-Attiyah.

The refusal came in accordance with Article no. 10 of the Washington Treaty, which stipulates that only European countries can become NATO members, an official told AFP on Wednesday.

This rejection is deemed a hit to Qatar’s strategic ambition, another setback after a group of neighboring countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, severed diplomatic ties with it on June 25, 2017 over financing and supporting terrorist organizations and having close ties with regional foe Iran.

NATO dashes membership hopes of Qatar https://t.co/2yQetWXGVQ pic.twitter.com/gXW6Lpz4DQ

— Trending NATO News (@NATOlizer) June 6, 2018

Speaking on the anniversary of the year-long diplomatic dispute with Doha Al-Attiyah said Qatar wanted to become a full member of NATO.

"Regarding the membership, we are a main ally from outside NATO,” Al-Attiyah said. “The ambition is full membership if our partnership with NATO develops and our vision is clear."

Analysts told Russia Today on June 6 that Qatar’s interest in joining NATO is "the latest Persian Gulf headache for Washington, which is doing all it can to avoid taking sides in a one-year-old feud between Doha and four Arab states."

Marianna Belenkaya, a Middle East analyst for Russia’s Kommersant daily, told RT that "While Doha’s comments should be interpreted as a statement of “loyalty to the West,” the US is “not taking sides” because the Gulf state dispute is “not beneficial to them."

"With troops in Qatar and a strong economic and military partnership with Saudi Arabia, Washington sees “Arab Gulf states as a single bloc that can oppose Iran’s interests in some ways and so they don’t want the bloc to facture,” Belenkaya said.