Turkey throws weight behind Qatar in Gulf showdown

Turkey threw its weight behind its ally Qatar on Wednesday, fast-tracking plans to deploy extra Turkish troops to the emirate as Arab rivals cut transport links and supply lines.

The move potentially puts Ankara on a collision course with Riyadh as tensions flare over Saudi-led attempts to isolate Qatar in protest at its alleged support for extremist groups in the Middle East and its softer approach towards Iran.

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish president, said it was wrong to impose sanctions on Doha. “It will not contribute to solving any problem to try and isolate in this way Qatar, which we know for sure has fought very effectively against terrorist groups,” he said.

Turkey’s parliament adopted a law on Wednesday night to allow Turkish troops to be stationed on Qatari soil. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE ....

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and UAE cut diplomatic ties with Qatar

DUBAI: Four Arab nations cut diplomatic ties with Qatar early Monday morning, further deepening a rift between Gulf Arab nations+ over that country's support for Islamist groups.

Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all announced they would withdraw their diplomatic staff from Qatar+ , a gas-rich nation that will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Saudi Arabia said Qatari troops would be pulled from its ongoing war in Yemen.

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All the nations also said they planned to cut air and sea traffic to the peninsular country. It wasn't immediately clear how that would affect Qatar Airways, one of the region's major long-haul carriers.

Qatari officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

With US no longer trusted, Turkey and Saudi forge new alliance

The visit of Saudi Arabia's King Salman to Turkey – in all he will spend five days there including two at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Istanbul - is being seen by the Turkish media as a landmark event. It is certainly a visit on an exceptionally grand scale – the king’s delegation took over an entire high-rise hotel and will have a fleet of 500 Mercedes at its disposal.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, King Salman’s host, signalled the special importance of his visitor by meeting him in person at Ankara Airport and driving back into town together with him. Normal protocol rules would have suggested that the king would be met by a minister and only meet the president in his palace later.

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President Erdogan was probably responding to a similar honour paid to him when he visited Saudi Arabia last December and was met at the airport by the king. Shortly afterwards photographs were issued of the two heads of state sitting together below a large portrait of Kemal Ataturk, the secularist founder of the Turkish Republic. On Tuesday, King Salman received Turkey’s top decoration.  Read More ...

Saudi Arabia threatens to sell off US assets if held responsible for 9/11 attacks

The Saudi Arabian government has threatened to sell of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets should the US Congress pass a bill that could hold the kingdom responsible for any role in the September 11, 2001 attacks, the New York Times reported on Friday. The newspaper reported that Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir told US lawmakers last month that “Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in Treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.”

The bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, would take away immunity from foreign governments in cases “arising from a terrorist attack that kills an American on American soil.”

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The New York Times, citing administration officials and congressional aides, said “the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon.” Read More here ...