Bahrain Wants Qatar's GCC Membership Frozen

In the latest chapter of the ongoing spat between some Arab countries and the world’s leading LNG exporter Qatar, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa has called for freezing Qatar’s membership in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

In a series of messages on Twitter, Al Khalifa said that Bahrain would not attend the next GCC meeting if Qatar is present, and criticized it for refusing to comply with the demands of the Saudi-led coalition that had imposed a blockade on Qatar.

Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Oman are the members of the GCC alliance. Of that alliance, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain are leading the boycott on Qatar, and in early June they cut diplomatic and trade ties with Doha.

Kuwait and Oman have largely stayed out of the dispute, and Kuwait has been trying to mediate talks between the parties in this crisis, but to no avail. Kuwait is set to host of the upcoming GCC summit in December.

“Qatar’s failure to respond positively to our just demand to stop conspiring against our countries proves that it does not respect the GCC,” Al Khalifa said on Twitter, as quoted by Bloomberg. “The right step to protect the GCC is to freeze Qatar’s membership until it comes to its senses,” Bahrain’s foreign minister noted.

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The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, said in an interview with CBS this weekend that U.S. President Donald Trump had offered to host him and officials of the countries that are boycotting Qatar at a meeting in Camp David to seek a resolution to the crisis.

“The president showed he is committed to find an end to this crisis…he suggested that we come and I told him straightaway, ‘Mr. President, we are very ready, I’ve been asking for dialogue all along,” the emir told CBS.

“It was supposed to be very soon this meeting, but I don’t have any response [from the other countries],” he added.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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