(ANTIWAR.COM) — Saudi Arabia and its allies have issued a list of 13 demands to be imposed on the Qatar government in return for the lifting of their blockade against the tiny Gulf state. The demands appear to start with those demands from a previous Saudi ultimatum, and expand on them in several major ways.
As with the ultimatum, the new demands start by insisting Qatar must permanently shut down all state media outlets, especially the popular al-Jazeera network. They also demand Qatar close all diplomatic facilities in Iran, and agree to broadly limit future trade with Iran.
On top of the old demands, the new list includes the imposition of an unspecified fine that Qatar would have to pay to the Saudis and their allies for disagreeing with them publicly in the past, and also a pledge by Qatar to expel the Turkish military from their base on Qatari soil.
As with the previous ultimatum, this list is seen as infringing on Qatar’s basic national sovereignty on several very specific fronts, and while Kuwait willingly delivered the list to Qatar, it’s highly unlikely the Qatari government will accept it.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had warned that they wanted the list to be “reasonable,” and it’s highly unlikely the US will view this list as such, particularly the demand to expel Turkey, as it’s hard to imagine the US would view kicking out a NATO member from a base as a “reasonable” part of the GCC’s demands.
By Jason Ditz / Republished with permission / AntiWar.com / Report a typo
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