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Rift within GCC ‘coming to an end’

Bubblegum Crisis

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Quote 1 :

Brotherhood leaders leave Qatar for Libya: report

GCC panel preparing plan to be implemented by Doha before envoys are reinstated

Gulf News Report
Published: 16:05 April 25, 2014


Dubai:
Dozens of Muslim Brotherhood leaders reportedly deported by Qatar have arrived in Libya, a London-based daily said.

The leaders have landed at Maeetiqiya international airport in the Libyan capital over three days, Libyan political, military and security sources told Al Arab newspaper.

They were ferried away to unidentified places in cars waiting at the airport located around 11km west of Tripoli and dominated by an armed Islamist group, the sources added.

According to the daily, Qatar has been looking for a country that would host the senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood following intense pressure by fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries — Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — to change its policy of supporting the movement.

The three countries on March 5 pulled out their ambassadors from Doha to protest against what was seen as Qatar’s meddling in their domestic affairs and its backing of the Islamist movement rejected by some GCC countries as an illegal organisation.

The three countries insisted their ambassadors would not be reinstated until Qatar complied fully with an agreement it signed on April 17 in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Although the details of the accord have not been made public, reports citing “well-informed sources” said that the three countries wanted Qatar’s alignment with GCC common policies and the deportation of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders from Qatar who should be denied access to all Qatari or Qatar-supported media.

Other conditions included deporting around Qatar-based 15 Gulf nationals whose activities have been considered suspicious.

The agreement was signed in Riyadh following an intense mediation by the Emir of Kuwait that has been richly acknowledged. Kuwait and Oman, the other two GCC members, did not recall their ambassadors from Doha.

In separate statements, the foreign ministers of Oman and Qatar have said that the divergences between Qatar and the three other GCC countries that constituted the most serious political crisis within the alliance since it was founded in 1981 were over.

Khalid Al Atiyyah, the Qatari minister, said last week that the “divergences in opinions are over and it is up to the countries to decide on sending their ambassadors back to Doha.”

However, Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s foreign minister, on Wednesday said that the reinstatement of the ambassadors was linked to Qatar’s commitment to the implementation of the Riyadh agreement.

“The GCC foreign ministers meeting in Riyadh on April 17 was the start of a process for the direct application of the agreement, so results will not be immediate,” he said.

“We have drawn up reconciliation measures and an action plan that is being fine-tuned right now in Riyadh. The timeline will be linked to the progress of the process,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a GCC security conference in Bahrain.

A GCC Executive Committee is holding meetings in the Saudi capital to prepare the points that will help with the implementation of the Riyadh agreement, Al Arab said.

Quoting diplomatic sources, the daily said that the points would be reviewed by the GCC foreign ministers before they are implemented by Qatar.

The committee would then monitor the application process with a three-month deadline, it added.

Some of the points include deportation of Muslim Brotherhood leading figures to their home countries and reviewing the policies of the Doha-based pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera.

The three countries also want Qatar not to allow religious preachers to use mosques or media to attack other GCC countries and to cancel all forums by organisations seen by the GCC as having links with terrorism.

They also insist that Qatar must shut down research centres directed by Saudi nationals who had been given the Qatari citizenship.


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Quote 2 :

GCC statement on ‘new cooperation mechanism’

Member states agree to implement Riyadh Document

WAM
Published: 16:07 April 18, 2014


Riyadh:
Foreign ministers of the GCC countries held a meeting on Thursday evening at the Riyadh Airbase in Saudi Arabia.

UAE Foreign Minister Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan attended the meeting along with his GCC counterparts.

A statement was released just before midnight after the meeting concluded.

Stemming from the strong and historic bonds and common destiny among the GCC countries and their keenness to further their progress, the foreign ministers of the GCC countries on Thursday, took an overall review of the procedures in place pertaining to foreign and security policies. It was agreed to adopt mechanisms to guarantee a collective framework and to ensure that policies of any of the GCC countries would not affect interests, security and stability of the countries or undermine their sovereignty, the statement said.

In this regard, Their Highnesses and Excellencies have confirmed their respective countries’ agreement on the implementation mechanism of the Riyadh Document, which is based on the principles of the GCC statute, it said.

The GCC foreign ministers hailed this historic achievement which as a result of 33 years of hard work to realise the interests of the peoples in the member states, to pave the way for wider horizons of security and stability, and to boost member states’ preparations for the challenges ahead, under a strong and coherent entity, the statement said.

They also praised the role played by the State of Kuwait, under the leadership of Emir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, to reach the aspired outcome.

Their Highnesses and Excellencies agreed the importance of proper fulfilment of the commitments undertaken, in order to safeguard the achievements and to move forward — by the grace of Allah — into a new phase of cohesion to surpass difficulties and challenges and to meet aspirations of the peoples of the member states.


...


Quote 3 :

Rift within GCC ‘coming to an end’

Reports indicate Qatar will expel Gulf citizens active with the Muslim Brotherhood and tone down Al Jazeera coverage

Gulf News Report
Published: 15:28 April 17, 2014


Dubai:
Gulf foreign ministers were to hold on Thursday an extraordinary meeting in Riyadh in a bid to defuse tensions between Qatar and three other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an unnamed Gulf official said.

Heavyweight Saudi Arabia, as well as the UAE and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar last month, accusing it of meddling in their internal affairs and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Gulf official said that the impromptu meeting aims to settle differences, but pointed out that there was no clear idea as yet about how the foreign ministers will go about doing it.

Reports from Bahrain have indicated that an accord was eventually reached and that the foreign ministers of the GCC would hold an extraordinary session on Thursday for the announcement.

According to a report published in Bahraini daily Al Ayam on Thursday and citing reports in the region, the new accord stipulates that Qatar deport around 15 Gulf nationals who are allegedly active members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including five UAE and two Saudi nationals, living in Doha.

Qatar-based pan-Arab television station Al Jazeera would be, under the reported deal, less aggressive in its coverage of events in some GCC countries and Egypt and avoid referring to the Egyptian military’s ouster last year of the Muslim Brotherhood-led government of Mohammad Mursi as a “military coup.”

Egyptian opposition figures living in Qatar would not be allowed to use Qatari media or Qatari-funded media, the reports said.

Omani Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs told London-based Saudi daily Al Hayat in an interview published on Thursday that the rift between the GCC had ended and had become “a thing of the past”.

He told the paper that the dispute was solved internally, within the GCC, “without allowing anyone to interfere”. The rift, he said, was a “storm that has passed”.

On Tuesday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal told reporters that GCC countries “are free in their policies, provided they do not harm interests of other members” of the regional grouping.

“As long as these countries adhere to this principle, there will be no problems among GCC states.”

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are hostile to the Brotherhood, fearing its brand of grassroots activism could undermine their authority.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on March 5 pulled out their ambassadors from Qatar after complaining that Doha had failed to comply with a non-interference agreement signed last year under the auspices of Kuwait.

Efforts have been deployed by fellow GCC member Kuwait to reconcile the two sides and put an end to the worst political rift to hit the six-member alliance since it was established in 1981 in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi.

Saudi Arabia has persistently insisted there could be no reconciliation until Qatar changed its attitude and honoured the agreement that stipulated non-interference in the domestic affairs of fellow GCC members and not extending support to the Muslim Brotherhood, considered an illegal movement in many GCC countries.


...
 
Algeria need to be careful, they sent them to stir something up in Algeria...
 
Gulf News is edited by Indians and thus cannot be trusted. Qatar and the other smaller GCC states must sooner rather than later be annexed by KSA since many of them (Qatar, UAE and Kuwait in particular) have little historical legitimacy and most of those territories were part of the ancient and nearly 5000 year old Dilmun civilization - a trading partner of nearby Mesopotamia and the IVC across the Arabian Sea. Or the other native civilizations of Eastern Arabia of which the majority were based in what is now the Eastern Province of KSA. Just like most of those people are originally from regions in what is now KSA.

Dilmun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eastern Arabia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Imagine how powerful KSA and how more resource rich KSA would be if the GCC states became part of KSA. We would have access to not only the Red Sea and from there the Mediterranean, the Gulf but also the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.
We could call the new country the Kingdom of Arabia or the Republic of the Arabian Peninsula depending on what you like. The point is that it is a necessity to unite at some point.

A united Arabian Peninsula like it was once before must become a reality in our lifetime once again. Those small states cannot survive on their own. The Americans must be weakened so they leave the region and then it can happen. All those foreign bases must also be removed. How Qatar can tolerate it and Bahrain I do not know. Americans cannot be trusted fully.

I pray for this scenario to happen even after I will be dead.
 
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Gulf News is edited by Indians and thus cannot be trusted.
...


Quote 4 :

Qatar to launch Al Jazeera counterweight

Justin Vela
May 4, 2014 Updated: May 5, 2014 13:11:00

ABU DHABI //
Qatar is launching a new television station as a political counterweight to Al Jazeera amid concern the network has become too supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The new station is to be an Arabic-language news channel based in London and broadcasting across the Arab world. It is one of several new media ventures launched under the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who succeeded his father in June and is seeking to put his own stamp on the country’s vast soft power machine.

The driving force behind the new station is Azmi Bishara, the Palestinian director of the Doha-based Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies, and a close confidant of the emir.

Mr Bishara is known to be “fairly anti-Brotherhood” and willing to criticise the group publicly, said Michael Stephens, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies Qatar.

“Bishara recommended that it be started. His own beliefs are that Qatar has been too close to the Ikhwan for too long.”

Mr Stephens said the channel, named AlAraby Television Network, was supposed to launch in January but kept getting pushed back.

It is currently recruiting staff, placing job adverts for a satellite coordinator and a planning producer and headhunting from existing Arabic news stations such as BBC Arabic.

Media outlets serve as Qatar’s main soft power tool on the international stage, especially the Doha-based television network Al Jazeera.

Since its launch in 1996 Al Jazeera has grown exponentially but its criticism of other Arabian Gulf countries and willingness to give voice to members of the Muslim Brotherhood, in line with Doha’s support for Islamists after the Arab Spring uprisings, has angered Qatar’s neighbours.

In one of the worst diplomatic spats in the GCC’s history, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar in March. The protest came after Youssef Al Qaradawi, a spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, who has a show on Al Jazeera, continued their policies.

Saudi Arabia considers the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organisation, a position backed by the UAE.

The new station will serve as a way for Qatar to not only boost its already sizeable media industry, but also allow Sheikh Tamim to step out of the shadow of his father, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and rebalance the country’s policies after drawing the ire of its neighbours.

“My view is that it’s the emir trying to be his own man,” said Andrew Hammond, a Middle East analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “He hasn’t really emerged from the shadow of his father.”

While Qatar would risk losing face and regional influence by closing Al Jazeera, the establishment of the new outlets appears part of a strategy to gain a new audience.

Instead of competing directly with Al Jazeera, the new station would be more likely to compete for viewers with Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya television.

Yet with so many Arabic-language news outlets in existence, Qatar’s new ventures are unlikely to offer Sheikh Tamim the same kind of power that Al Jazeera offered his father Sheikh Hamad.

“This channel is designed to correct the image of Qatar, not to assert its interests,” said Mr Stephens.

The television station was registered in the UK in September 2013, according to business records.

Public documents describe the company’s objectives as: “To set up and operate television and broadcsting [sic] stations and services, publishing and printing newspapers and magazines.”

Sabah Al Mukhtar, the London-based lawyer who registered the company, described Al Jazeera as the landmark station, but said it was “less impartial than it was before”.

“Without Al Jazeera you would not have AlAraby, you would not have the other stations that are flourishing all over the place,” Mr Al Mukhtar said.

Qatar has also launched a news website based in London and with an office in Beirut. Named Al Araby Al Jadeed, the website is owned by Fadaat Media Limited, which registered in the UK in May 2013, shortly before Sheikh Tamim took over from his father.

Sultan Ghanim Al Kuwari, a businessman from a prominent Qatari family, is listed on the documents as director.

An employee of Fadaat Media, who refused to give his name, described Al Araby Al Jadeed as intended to offer unbiased political news focused on “liberal freedoms” and the “ideals of the Arab Spring”.

The website will be only in Arabic for now and aims to eventually publish a print edition, he said.

The move to establish new media outlets is likely connected to a wider Qatari strategy that sees Al Jazeera rebranding itself by renaming its sports division beIN and its children’s channel JeemTV.

“I think they are splitting up the brand,” said Mr Stephens.

While Al Jazeera is openly funded by the Qatari-government, its involvement in Fadaat Media and Al Araby Television Network is not clear.

The representative from Fadaat Media denied any connection to a government, saying that the company was invested in by private businessmen.

“It’s not that they need a written signed approval from the emir, but of course they would want his tactic support,” Mr Stephens said of the new outlets.

When Emir Tamim came to power in June 2013, there was an expectation he would change Qatar’s policies.

Yet, there were few immediate signs of change. Though he had abdicated, Sheikh Hamad was still believed to wield considerable power behind the scenes and Tamim did not alter his father’s policies.

Florence Gaub, a senior analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies, said the location and even the name of the new television suggested Sheikh Tamim had big ambitions for it.

“It shows the ambition to create something new and maybe even shows the ambition to create something bigger than Al Jazeera.”


The National.ae


...
 
Quote 4 :

Qatar to launch Al Jazeera counterweight

Justin Vela
May 4, 2014 Updated: May 5, 2014 13:11:00

ABU DHABI //
Qatar is launching a new television station as a political counterweight to Al Jazeera amid concern the network has become too supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The new station is to be an Arabic-language news channel based in London and broadcasting across the Arab world. It is one of several new media ventures launched under the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who succeeded his father in June and is seeking to put his own stamp on the country’s vast soft power machine.

The driving force behind the new station is Azmi Bishara, the Palestinian director of the Doha-based Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies, and a close confidant of the emir.

Mr Bishara is known to be “fairly anti-Brotherhood” and willing to criticise the group publicly, said Michael Stephens, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies Qatar.

“Bishara recommended that it be started. His own beliefs are that Qatar has been too close to the Ikhwan for too long.”

Mr Stephens said the channel, named AlAraby Television Network, was supposed to launch in January but kept getting pushed back.

It is currently recruiting staff, placing job adverts for a satellite coordinator and a planning producer and headhunting from existing Arabic news stations such as BBC Arabic.

Media outlets serve as Qatar’s main soft power tool on the international stage, especially the Doha-based television network Al Jazeera.

Since its launch in 1996 Al Jazeera has grown exponentially but its criticism of other Arabian Gulf countries and willingness to give voice to members of the Muslim Brotherhood, in line with Doha’s support for Islamists after the Arab Spring uprisings, has angered Qatar’s neighbours.

In one of the worst diplomatic spats in the GCC’s history, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar in March. The protest came after Youssef Al Qaradawi, a spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, who has a show on Al Jazeera, continued their policies.

Saudi Arabia considers the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organisation, a position backed by the UAE.

The new station will serve as a way for Qatar to not only boost its already sizeable media industry, but also allow Sheikh Tamim to step out of the shadow of his father, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and rebalance the country’s policies after drawing the ire of its neighbours.

“My view is that it’s the emir trying to be his own man,” said Andrew Hammond, a Middle East analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “He hasn’t really emerged from the shadow of his father.”

While Qatar would risk losing face and regional influence by closing Al Jazeera, the establishment of the new outlets appears part of a strategy to gain a new audience.

Instead of competing directly with Al Jazeera, the new station would be more likely to compete for viewers with Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya television.

Yet with so many Arabic-language news outlets in existence, Qatar’s new ventures are unlikely to offer Sheikh Tamim the same kind of power that Al Jazeera offered his father Sheikh Hamad.

“This channel is designed to correct the image of Qatar, not to assert its interests,” said Mr Stephens.

The television station was registered in the UK in September 2013, according to business records.

Public documents describe the company’s objectives as: “To set up and operate television and broadcsting [sic] stations and services, publishing and printing newspapers and magazines.”

Sabah Al Mukhtar, the London-based lawyer who registered the company, described Al Jazeera as the landmark station, but said it was “less impartial than it was before”.

“Without Al Jazeera you would not have AlAraby, you would not have the other stations that are flourishing all over the place,” Mr Al Mukhtar said.


Qatar has also launched a news website based in London and with an office in Beirut. Named Al Araby Al Jadeed, the website is owned by Fadaat Media Limited, which registered in the UK in May 2013, shortly before Sheikh Tamim took over from his father.

Sultan Ghanim Al Kuwari, a businessman from a prominent Qatari family, is listed on the documents as director.

An employee of Fadaat Media, who refused to give his name, described Al Araby Al Jadeed as intended to offer unbiased political news focused on “liberal freedoms” and the “ideals of the Arab Spring”.

The website will be only in Arabic for now and aims to eventually publish a print edition, he said.

The move to establish new media outlets is likely connected to a wider Qatari strategy that sees Al Jazeera rebranding itself by renaming its sports division beIN and its children’s channel JeemTV.

“I think they are splitting up the brand,” said Mr Stephens.

While Al Jazeera is openly funded by the Qatari-government, its involvement in Fadaat Media and Al Araby Television Network is not clear.

The representative from Fadaat Media denied any connection to a government, saying that the company was invested in by private businessmen.

“It’s not that they need a written signed approval from the emir, but of course they would want his tactic support,” Mr Stephens said of the new outlets.

When Emir Tamim came to power in June 2013, there was an expectation he would change Qatar’s policies.

Yet, there were few immediate signs of change. Though he had abdicated, Sheikh Hamad was still believed to wield considerable power behind the scenes and Tamim did not alter his father’s policies.

Florence Gaub, a senior analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies, said the location and even the name of the new television suggested Sheikh Tamim had big ambitions for it.

“It shows the ambition to create something new and maybe even shows the ambition to create something bigger than Al Jazeera.”


The National.ae


...

Dear I was talking in general because I have noticed that they sometimes write propaganda against KSA and no Arab from UAE would ever do that since people from UAE are the same as people from Eastern Province in KSA and many also have ancestral ties to Najd, Hijaz and other historical regions of KSA. Often many of the articles are written by foreigners. I am not a big fan of Gulf News.:D
 
Dear I was talking in general because I have noticed that they sometimes write propaganda against KSA and no Arab from UAE would ever do that since people from UAE are the same as people from Eastern Province in KSA and many also have ancestral ties to Najd, Hijaz and other historical regions of KSA. Often many of the articles are written by foreigners. I am not a big fan of Gulf News.:D
UAE wont get annexed by ksa because emiratis are very rich therefore don't want to share their wealth with 21 million Saudis

and you are wrong, Emiratis have greater ancestral ties to Yemen/Oman than KSA
 
UAE wont get annexed by ksa because emiratis are very rich therefore don't want to share their wealth with 21 million Saudis

and you are wrong, Emiratis have greater ancestral ties to Yemen/Oman than KSA

KSA is hardly poor. In fact much richer than UAE. UAE just happens to have a native population that is nearly 100 times smaller. You are looking at this in the short time. That's not the right thing to do. You need to look at the situation on the long run.

That's not correct. Most Emiratis have ancestral ties to Najd or Hijaz or other regions of KSA. A large portion have ancestral ties to Yemen indeed but Yemenis and Saudi Arabians are already very close. Oman? Not so much.
 
KSA is hardly poor. In fact much richer than UAE. UAE just happens to have a native population that is nearly 100 times smaller. You are looking at this in the short time. That's not the right thing to do. You need to look at the situation on the long run.

That's not correct. Most Emiratis have ancestral ties to Najd or Hijaz or other regions of KSA. A large portion have ancestral ties to Yemen indeed but Yemenis and Saudi Arabians are already very close. Oman? Not so much.
You mean after oil?
 
You mean after oil?

I am talking about all the resources that make UAE rich. Or have made it rich. UAE is better off than any other GCC state outside of KSA because large parts of its economy does not depend on resources anymore and they have enormous investments in the Arab world and outside of it. They have a bright future in other words. I am talking about what would benefit the Arabian Peninsula on the long run. A united Arabian Peninsula would in my opinion.

Look, the GCC is not just about economy, military etc. I think that it's quit possible that a merge into one country will take place sometime in the future. It can't be ruled out. We all know that the geopolitical realities of the region will ultimately change. Then what with small countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain? Not that UAE or Oman are small but you should know what I mean/hint to. Hopefully.
 
Does the arabian peninsula have any other industrial resources save oil/gas?
 
Does the arabian peninsula have any other industrial resources save oil/gas?

Historically it has had the biggest gold mine in the ME and one of the oldest in the world in Hijaz.

Mahd adh Dhahab - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's very rich in minerals. Before that incense which was the most valuable ancient gods for a significant time and which created the first real international trade route. Later it was mainly pearls, gold etc.

Incense Route - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Diamonds also exist.

Some of the other minerals are barite, copper, gypsum, high grade silica sand, pumice, zinc, phosphate, bauxite, bentonite, dolomite, expandable clay, feldspar and nepheline syenite, granite, magnesium, limestone, kaolinitic clays, olivine, pozzolan, rock wool, zeolites, aluminum, iron ore, magnesite, tantalum, marble, sulfur and much more. That's only in KSA. I know that they have found uranium in Southern Arabia.

Obviously outside of oil and gas. So overall a very rich region in terms of natural resources and minerals.

Other than that there is a unprecedented potential for wind and solar energy. Besides that there is the tourism sector which is especially big in certain countries on the Arabian Peninsula, agriculture and the service sector and slowly but steadily a real industry and manufacturing of goods of all kinds. Which is expanding rather quickly.
 
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KSA's population is poor, UAE's is not.

Yes, extremely poor. Just passed the GDP per capita of Israel and the EU average and the economy is growing extremely quickly. As does the overall economy and especially the non-oil/gas/mineral sectors.

If KSA had a local population of only 1 million KSA would have Dubai's in every private backyard.
 

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