DUBAI: The UAE will reopen its borders to Qatar from Saturday (today), its official news agency said, making it the first of several boycotting countries to do so after a more than three-year blockade.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt in June 2017 cut air, land and sea links with Qatar over claims the gas-rich nation backed Islamists and was too close to Iran — charges Doha denied.

The quartet agreed to lift the restrictions at a summit on Tuesday in the Saudi desert city of Al-Ula, after a flurry of diplomatic activity by outgoing US President Donald Trump’s administration.

The UAE “will work to reopen all land, sea and air borders to incoming and outgoing” traffic from Qatar, said Khalid Abdullah Belhoul, under-secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation, quoted by the official WAM news agency. The measures would take effect on Saturday, according to the statement.

The UAE had said that Gulf states would restore travel, trade and transport links with Qatar within a week.

Its minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said that although rebuilding confidence and addressing difficult geopolitical issues were longer-term tasks, there was a push to quickly restore physical links.

“The practical measures will be within a week... including travel, transportation, trade et cetera,” he told a media briefing.

Qatar lacks direct land borders with the UAE, and overland traffic from the country must pass through Saudi Arabia. On Monday, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Ahmad Nasser Al-Sabah announced on state TV that a deal had been agreed to “open the airspace and land and sea borders between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Qatar” but the move has yet to be implemented.

The United Arab Emirates, the staunchest critic of Qatar and its leadership throughout the crisis, was seen as a reluctant party to the rapprochement.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2021