Al Jazeera’s future lies in balance as Qatar’s isolation grows
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Rebecca Hawkes
| 05 July 2017

Foreign ministers of the four countries boycotting Qatar are meeting in Cairo on 5 July to discuss what steps to take if Doha snubs their ultimatum, said to include the closure of Al Jazeera.

Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt had agreed to a request by mediator Kuwait to extend by 48 hours the original 2 July deadline for Qatar to comply with 13 demands.

However, as the revised deadline approached, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, Qatar’s Foreign Minister, dismissed the list of demands as impossible to meet.

“The list is unrealistic and is not actionable,” he said. “It's not about terrorism, it’s talking about shutting down the freedom of speech.”

The 13 demands reportedly include that Qatar closes its Al Jazeera TV network and affiliates, shuts down a Turkish military base and scales down links with Iran.

The Saudi-led countries also demand that Qatar sever its alleged ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and ISIL, according to the Reuters and Associated Press news agencies.

The bitter dispute has seen the four Middle East nations sever diplomatic ties and impose sanctions on Qatar, accusing it of supporting “terrorism”. Doha denies the allegations.

Although Qatar’s official response to the demands – delivered to Kuwait on Monday (3 July) – has not been disclosed, the country’s foreign minister called for “a proper condition for a dialogue” during a visit to in Rome on 1 July.

“Everyone is aware that these demands are meant to infringe the sovereignty of the state of Qatar, shut the freedom of speech and impose auditing and probation mechanism for Qatar,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying.

“We believe that the world is not governed by ultimatums, we believe that the world is governed by the international law, it is governed by an order that does not allow large countries to bully small countries.”

UAE’s foreign secretary, Anwar Gargash has blamed Qatar for the leak of its 13 demands and called it either an “attempt to undermine serious mediation or yet another sign of callous policy. “It would be wiser that [Qatar] deal seriously with the demands and concerns of the neighbours or a divorce will take place,” he warned.

Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have already severed all air, land and sea links with Qatar and raised the possibility of imposing more sanctions if their demands were rejected.

The four countries will discuss on Wednesday the “future steps in dealing with Qatar as well as exchange of points of view and the evaluation of the existing international and regional contacts in this connection”, said Egypt’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ahmed Abu Zeid.