DOHA: Qatar on Saturday denounced a sweeping list of demands from Saudi Arabia and its allies in an escalating Gulf diplomatic crisis as unreasonable and an impingement on the emirate’s sovereignty.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt want Qatar to meet the 13-point ultimatum in return for an end to a nearly three-week-old diplomatic and trade “blockade” of the emirate.

“This list of demands confirms what Qatar has said from the beginning — the illegal blockade has nothing to do with combating terrorism, it is about limiting Qatar’s sovereignty, and outsourcing our foreign policy,” said Sheikh Saif bin Ahmed Al-Thani, head of Qatar’s government communications office.

“The US secretary of state recently called upon the blockading nations to produce a list of grievances that was ‘reasonable and actionable’.

“The British foreign secretary asked that the demands be ‘measured and realistic’. This list does not satisfy that criteria.”

The four Arab governments delivered the demands to Qatar through mediator Kuwait on Thursday, more than two weeks after severing all ties with the emirate and imposing an embargo. The document has not been published but has been widely leaked and the demands are sweeping in their scope. They include the closure of Al Jazeera television, a long-standing source of conflict between Doha and neighbouring countries which accuse it of fomenting regional strife.

Gulf ‘divorce’

The ultimatum also includes calls for Doha to cut ties to groups including the Muslim Brotherhood, IS, Al Qaeda and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

Qatar has also been asked to hand over opposition figures wanted by its three neighbours and Egypt and to downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran. Notably, it has also been told to shut a Turkish military base in the emirate.

Meshal Hamad Al-Thani, Qatar’s ambassador to the United States, tweeted that the list was meant to “punish Qatar for its independence”.

Qatar was warned by one of its most hawkish critics in the region that unless it meets the list of demands, Doha faces “divorce” from its Gulf neighbours.

Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s state minister for foreign affairs, said Qatar should yield to the demands. “It would be wiser that [Qatar] deal seriously with the demands and concerns of the neighbours or a divorce will take place,” he wrote on Twitter.

The demands confirm that “the crisis is profound”, Gargash said, adding Qatar had leaked the document containing the demands.

Al Jazeera responded to the demands by saying it “deplores” calls for it to be taken off air. “We in the network believe that any call for closing down Al Jazeera is nothing but an attempt to silence the freedom of expression in the region and to suppress people’s right to information,” said the broadcaster.

In the other official response out of Qatar, its Human Rights Committee said the demands represented “gross violations” of basic rights.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2017