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Envoy: Qatar's isolation directed against its sovereignty

19 June 2017 [14:47] - TODAY.AZ

By Azernews


By Kamila Aliyeva

Qatar's isolation by a number of Arab states in the region is directed against its sovereignty.

Ambassador of Qatar in the United States, Mashal bin Hamad al-Thani said in an interview with the Al-Jazeera TV channel.

Qatar's isolation by its powerful neighbors is not connected with accusations of "supporting terrorism," according to ambassador.

Al-Thani noted that there are specific states interested in isolating Qatar and one of these countries is the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, Qatar says it will continue to supply gas to the UAE, despite the severance of relations and the blockade imposed on Doha.

"In all our contracts there is a provision on so-called force majeure ... The blockade in which we are now considered to be force majeure, and we can close the gas pipeline to the UAE, however, Qatar does not deal with contracts, but with ethics," said Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, executive director of the state oil and gas company Qatar Petroleum, in an interview with Al-Jazeera.

The closure of the gas pipeline would cause great damage to the people of the UAE, which Qatar considers to be brotherly.

"For Qatar, this is beyond the scope of the contract, and we decided that the gas will not overlap now," he said.

Several Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing the latter of supporting ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other terrorists and destabilizing the situation in the Middle East. They were later joined by Libya, Yemen, the Maldives, Mauritius and Mauritania, with Jordan and Djibouti announcing they would lower the level of diplomatic contacts with Qatar. Senegal and Chad recalled their ambassadors from Doha.

Doha denied allegations over its support to terrorism and extremism saying that the diplomatic rift was based on "baseless fabricated claims." Qatar expressed its readiness for a dialogue to solve the crisis and denied to take counter-action measures against its neighbors.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/regions/162365.html

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