Qatar to face new sanctions if it remains ‘stubborn’: official

CAIRO – 1 July 2017: “The deadline Egypt and three Gulf states gave Qatar ends on July 3 with no response from the Qatari side,” Egypt’s Parliament Secretary of Foreign Affairs Committee Tarek al Kholi said on Saturday.

Kholi said the conditions which the four countries presented to the Qatari side included Doha stopping aid and support to terrorist organizations and abstaining from undermining Arab national security. However he indicated that “Qatar’s stubbornness is evident in summoning Turkish and Iranian military forces to its land, while Qatari opposition groups had plans to lead a coup against Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim.”

Egypt played a key role at the UN Security Council in accusing Qatar of funding terrorist groups in Libya in a way that threatens the regional security order.

“During the Egyptian parliamentarians’ trip to Washington in June, the Egyptian delegation met with U.S. Congressmen and the Congress Foreign Affairs Committee Chief to present some facts as Doha’s embracing leaders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood designated terrorist groups in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain,” Kholi noted.

He pointed out that Qatar may face severe sanctions if it insists on not meeting the four countries’ conditions such as freezing its membership in many Arab institutions, cancelling economic agreements with Gulf states and seeking UN sanctions against it.