On December 9, representatives of the six GCC countries gathered
in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia for the 39th GCC Summit. The above
picture is at that time. There are six gentlemen in the picture. This picture
shows as if they were representatives of each six countries. But you might notice
something strange in this picture. In fact, the gentleman at most right side is
the Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) of Saudi Arabia, At the same time
you can see the King Salman in the center. Other gentlemen are the representative
of four GCC countries. That is, the representatives of one of the six GCC
countries have not appeared in the picture.
It was a representative from Qatar. Qatar sent Minister of State
for Foreign Affairs as the government representative. All the summits up to
now, including the Kuwait Summit of last year, Tamim, Emir of Qatar, was
present at the Summit. But in June last year Qatar was isolated from GCC because
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed the diplomatic ties with Qatar. Since then Saudi Arabia and Qatar heavily hate
each other. It is understandable that Tamim himself avoids the Riyadh Summit. Despite
there is a proper foreign minister of royal family member, Qatar sent the state
minister for foreign affairs, who was the technocrat of non-royal family.
In the above photo, Emir of Kuwait and the King of Bahrain are on
both sides of King Salman. The second from the left is UAE Vice President and Emir
of Dubai, the leftist gentleman is Omani foreign minister. Both are royalty.
Was the Saudi government intentionally eliminated Qatar's representative? Or the
Qatari State Minister declined himself to join the group photo? The truth is
unknown. It was easy to guess that Qatar would get a cold reception at the
meeting.
At Kuwait Summit held last year after four countries, namely Saudi
Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, Qatari Emir
Tamim attended the Summit. In return Saudi Arabia sent Foreign Minister.
Neither King Salman nor Crown Prince MbS attended the meeting. Kuwait took the effort
of mediation between the two. But it was fruitless. Kuwait, who was the host
country of the summit, lost its face. In this year’s Riyadh Summit hosted by
Saudi Arabia was in reverse. The antagonism between two countries is now in a critical
situation.
The friction between Saudi Arabia and Qatar was rooted in deep. It
started from critical report by Al Jazeera TV of Qatar related to Saudi royal
family. In addition, Saudi Arabia recently claimed that Qatar had a close
relationship with Shiite Iran and Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia seemed
Qatar as a sponsor of terrorist. The conflict between Qatar and Saudi Arabia
entered into the new phase. In other words, the reason of conflict has changed
from democratic values of freedom of press to religious affairs related to terrorism.
Democratic values can be compromised or resolved through dialogue, but it is
not easy to solve conflict related to religion.
In fact,
the GCC Summit was not the only one issue that confronted the two sides. Qatar
announced the withdrawal from OPEC just before the Summit. Qatar oil minister
said at the press conference that the reason why his country exit from OPEC was
to focus on increasing production and expanding the market of natural gas for
the future. He stressed that there was no political intention at all.
Even though
the oil minister's remarks were not false, no one believes that Qatar has no
political intention. Recently Saudi Arabia conspired with the non-OPEC oil
producing country Russia to reduce production and maintain high prices. US
President Trump condemns the OPEC as a cartel and insists low crude oil price. Saudi
Arabia neglects the opinion of other OPEC members. Qatar thought bitterly about
the attitude of Saudi Arabia and doubted the advantage of being a member of
OPEC.
The relationship between Saudi Arabia and Qatar is in a desperate situation.
Qatar undoubtedly seems to be exit from GCC following OPEC membership.
End
Please tell us your comments and opinions on this matter.
Areha Kazuya
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