International reactions on Qatar rift with Arab states

CAIRO – 05 June 2017: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, the Maldives announced cutting their diplomatic ties with Qatar over "its continuous support for terrorism." Some countries have declared their official reactions on that decision.

The United States

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday that they did not expect a decision by some Gulf countries to sever ties with Qatar to affect the fight against terrorism, but urged them to address their differences, Reuters reported

Russia

“Russia does not interfere with those decisions,” Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

"We are interested in keeping good relations with everybody, especially in the region, where now the most important is to focus all efforts on fighting the threat common to all - the threat of international terrorism," Lavrov said.
Russia’s called on a “stable and peaceful” situation in the Gulf, the Kremlin said on Monday. The Kremlin hopes the current crisis between Qatar and other Arab states will not affect “the common determination and resolve” in the fight against terrorism, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Iran

Iran official blamed the U.S. for the Arab-Qatari crisis. "What is happening is the preliminary result of the sword dance," Hamid Aboutalebi, deputy chief of staff of Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted on Monday.

“I had already written that the era of creating coalitions and Big Brothers is over, and political domination, security clannishness, occupation, and invasion is not going to bring about anything other than insecurity,” Aboutalebi wrote.

“Today, I am writing that the era of sanctions is over too, and cutting diplomatic ties, closing borders, laying sieges on countries, and ejecting countries out of the selfsame coalition, etc. is not the way out of the crisis,” he added.

Turkey

Turkey expressed its sadness by a rift between Qatar and Arab nations. "We see the stability in the Gulf region as our own unity and solidarity," Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters on Monday.

He called for dialogue to resolve the dispute. "Countries may of course have some issues, but dialogue must continue under every circumstance for problems to be resolved peacefully. We are saddened by the current picture and will give any support for its normalization," Cavusoglu said.

India

India will not be impacted by some Gulf countries cutting off diplomatic ties with Qatar, Foreign Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Monday.
Swaraj told reporters that she only cares about the Indians working in Qatar. "There is no challenge arising out of this for us. This is an internal matter of GCC (Gulf Coordination Council,)” she added.

Pakistan

Pakistan has no plans to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, Pakistan’s spokesman for the South Asian nation's Foreign Ministry Nafees Zakaria said on Monday.
Nafees indicated that the Pakistani Foreign Ministry will issue an official statement once new changes occur.