Qatar responds to demands after deadline extended
Qatar has responded to a list of demands from Saudi Arabia and its allies after they agreed to give it another 48 hours to address their grievances
An aerial view of part of Doha, the Qatari capital
Qatar on Monday responded to a list of demands from Saudi Arabia and its allies after they agreed to give a defiant Doha another 48 hours to address their grievances.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain cut off ties with Qatar on 5 June, accusing it of supporting terrorism – an allegation which Doha vehemently denied. On 22 June they issued a 13-point list of demands to end the standoff and gave Qatar 10 days to comply.
Details of the response were not immediately available, but a Gulf official told AFP news agency that Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani had delivered it during a short visit to Kuwait, which is acting as a mediator in the crisis.
Qatar has previously said the stiff demands – including closing the broadcast channel al-Jazeera and ejecting Turkish troops based in Qatar – are so draconian that they appeared designed to be rejected.
"They are reminiscent of the extreme and punitive conduct of 'bully' states that have historically resulted in war," the lawyers said.
According to a joint statement on the Saudi state news agency SPA, the four countries said they were extending the ultimatum, which had been due to expire at the end of the day on Sunday, at the request of Kuwait's emir.
The blockading countries have not detailed any penalties to be imposed if their ultimatum is spurned, though UAE diplomats have suggested either suspending Qatar from the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), the regional trading bloc, or seeking to impose sanctions on countries that continue to trade with Qatar.
The western-backed, six-member GCC was formed in 1981 – in the wake of Iran’s Islamic revolution and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war – by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.
In the evening, Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir expressed hopes for a "positive response to be able to resolve the crisis".
Qatar's reply would be "examined with precision", Jubeir told a news conference with German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
