(ANTIMEDIA) — The email account of one of Washington’s most influential foreign operatives, Yousef Al-Otaiba, has been hacked. A number of those emails were sent to the Intercept, as well as the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast, the Intercept reports. The hacker has allegedly promised to release a trove of these emails publicly.
Of all of the non-Arab countries which publicly proclaimed neutrality over the current Qatar crisis, Turkey’s stated neutrality is the most difficult to swallow. Even Iran whose alleged steps towards semi-normalisation (and even that’s a stretch) with Qatar is a stated proximate cause of the Saudi led dispute, has taken a more neutral position, criticising the act rather than the states who enacted the total shutting off of Qatar from its neighbours and much of the wider Arab world.
There has been considerable debate about the reasons for the extraordinary diplomatic and economic attack on Qatar organised by Saudi Arabia today. What makes it baffling is that there is no real explanation for it.
It’s not every day that two states with similar societies and international alignments break into an open cold war, but this is what is happen between Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Here’s what you need to know.
1. Black Gold Meets Cold War In The Desert
Facing an orchestrated attempt by various Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia to isolate it, the Kingdom of Qatar has looked for help to Russia.
Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani has telephoned Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in what is clearly a call for help. Here is how TASS, Russia’s official news agency, reports the call
The parties paid special attention to the rising tensions between Qatar and some other Arab countries,” the statement reads.
Qatar Emir Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani waits for the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of their meeting, at Diwan Palace in Doha, Qatar. (Brendan Smialowski/AP)
Qatar has slammed the decision of three Gulf states, Egypt and the Maldives to sever ties with it on Monday, saying they were “unjustified” and aimed to put Doha under political “guardianship” as Turkey called for dialogue.
Press TV – June 5, 2017 Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have cut diplomatic ties and all land, sea and air contacts with Qatar, accusing the Persian Gulf country of supporting terrorism and interfering in their internal affairs. Riyadh took the lead on Monday to sever relations and other countries fell in line […]
Qatari markets are likely to suffer further in the coming days as the country is locked out of regional trade and exchange [Xinhua]
Markets in the Middle East took a hit following announcements from Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Yemen that they had severed ties with Qatar over its alleged ties to “extremist” groups.
Qatar’s QE Index became the world’s worst performing and hardest hit Middle Eastern exchange on Monday as a result of the break in diplomatic ties when it lost 7.27 per cent of its value at press time.
Less than two weeks after Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and spoke of the need for Arab unity against Iran, two of the Gulf’s most prominent and ideologically similar states are at each others throats.
While received wisdom is that the Saudi led diplomatic and economic isolation of the small and wealthy state of Qatar represents a fracture in the grand anti-Iranian coalition the United States seeks to build, practically it means something less and something more at the same time.
