United Arab Emirates reopens its borders with Qatar

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is following in Saudi Arabia's footsteps and will proceed to reopen its borders with Qatar, thus ending the crisis unleashed in 2017 when the Gulf countries isolated their neighbour. The diplomatic agreement this country signed on Tuesday with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE is gradually materialising through the lifting of border restrictions.

The UAE will open its land, sea and air borders with Qatar on Saturday, showing its commitment to the new diplomatic agreement. Following the announcement made by Saudi Arabia in the same connection last week, the Emirates' authorities promised that they would also reopen their borders within seven days, as they have done. 

With the opening of the borders it is hoped that trade links will be restored; however, the Emirates' minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said that some problems would take longer to be solved. "We are off to a very good start... but we are having trouble regaining confidence," he said.

For example, Qatar's foreign minister, Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, told the Financial Times that the country would not alter its good relations with Iran and Turkey. This is one of the thorniest points that triggered the diplomatic crisis four years ago. The Emirate's foreign minister has repeatedly accused these two countries of "interfering in Arab sovereignty and interests". 

Even with the differences still to be settled, Mr Gargash wanted to stress the role played by the UAE in the signing of the agreement and said that they had been optimistic for some time about the prospect of restoring relations with Qatar. 

The 41st Summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), held in the Saudi city of al-Ula, put an end to the diplomatic crisis of June 2017 that had blown up relations between the Qatari state and its Gulf neighbours and Egypt.

The Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who had not attended since 2017, was present at the summit. The embrace between him and the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was the image of reconciliation between the Gulf nations. 

One of the key points of the disagreement was Qatar's collaboration with organisations designated as terrorist by some of its neighbours, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, which Qatar admitted to having supported, though it continues to deny having provided aid to al-Qaeda and Daesh. 

Another of the issues that caused the crisis of 2017 was Qatar's close relationship with Turkey and Iran, which the rest of the countries consider to be nations hostile to their interests. Iran is Saudi Arabia's great rival in the Middle East and Turkey also supports organisations such as the Muslim Brothers, in addition to having been collaborating with the side opposed to that supported by the Emirates in the civil war in Libya. 

Two states belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council such as Oman and Kuwait decided not to sever relations with Qatar. As a result, Kuwait has acted, together with the United States, as a mediator in the dispute. 

Indeed, it was this country that announced the signing of the agreement at the beginning of the week. "An agreement has been reached to reopen the air space and land and sea borders between Saudi Arabia and Qatar this very night", announced the Kuwaiti foreign minister Sheikh Ahmad Naser al-Sabah on state television.

Kuwait's announcement was followed by the declaration of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Salman, who stated that the Gulf countries would close ranks "in view of the challenges facing the region". 

Saudi Arabia thus became the first country to announce the reopening of its borders and the end of the blockade. An announcement that came on the eve of the Gulf Cooperation Council Summit after many hours of work with the aim of staging reconciliation at this annual event. 

The foreign minister of the Saudi monarchy, Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, said the parties were "extremely pleased" to have reached an agreement that was "completely satisfactory to the nations involved".

The summit was attended as a guest by the chief adviser to the White House, President Donald Trump's brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the Egyptian foreign minister, Sameh Soukry.