Foreign Arab envoys ‘back to business’ in Qatar

Ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain will be returning to the city-state of Qatar after an 8-month long absence.

In an attempt to reconnect with its long standing partners, Qatar has requested some of the senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood to leave the country in September.

The diplomatic rift started as the three countries disagreed with the support that the Qatar government providing to the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist organization classified by Saudi Arabia and UAE as a terrorist group.

The three countries have pulled out their ambassadors from Doha with the allegations that the support that Qatar provides to the Muslim Brotherhood threatens the security of the region and dishonors the agreement of the Gulf Cooperation Council(GCC). Qatar denies their allegations.

Last November 16, the GCC announced that after the meeting in Riyadh, the countries have sought to rekindle ties and that the decision ‘signals the opening of a new page’ for an amalgamated union.

A day after the meeting, Saudi Ambassador to Qatar Abdullah Al-Aifan returned to Doha, and other countries are scheduled to follow suit.

With this, the GCC Summit, which will be held from December 9th to 10th in Doha, is seen to carry huge potentials to further regional integration of the Gulf states. This renewed cooperation can be utilized as momentum to secure the centrality of the council and banish extremism within the borders of the six member states.

Political alignment within the GCC has played an important role in the decisions of the three countries to withdraw their ambassadors. The aim to align foreign and security policies of the six Sunni-ruled member states is a show of unity and force to belligerent neighbors in the Middle East.

The GCC is a six-member council that comprises of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait.