Qatar will never surrender to the pressure being applied by its Arab neighbors and won’t change its independent foreign policy to resolve disputes that have put the region on edge, Qatar’s foreign minister has told Aljazeera.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani made the statement in Doha on Thursday, just days after Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and several other countries cut relations with Qatar.
They accuse Qatar of supporting armed groups and their regional rival, Iran. Qatar says the charges are baseless.
“We are not ready to surrender and will never be ready to surrender the independence of our foreign policy,” the minister said.
He also said Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani would not leave the country while it was “in blockade”, and therefore could not attend an offered mediation by US President Donald Trump at the White House.
Aljazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Doha, said Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman was defiant and stressed that Qatar could live under embargo forever.
“Qatar has the backing of the international community and that they will manage to mitigate the consequences of this crisis,” He added.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said that “measures had been taken by the Qatari government to ensure that the standards provided to the people will be maintained”.
He said Qatar had not yet been presented with a list of demands by the countries that cut off ties with the country on Monday, but he insisted it be solved by peaceful means.
“There cannot ever be a military solution to this problem,” he said.
He further said that the contingent of Turkish troops set to deploy to Qatar was for the sake of the entire region’s security.
Analysts say the crisis is in part an extension of a preexisting dispute that saw Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain temporarily recall their ambassadors from Doha in 2014 over Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
