London: The United Arab Emirates has called for a “western mechanism” to make Qatar abide by any agreement to end its alleged support for terrorism.
UAE’s Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash said its allies in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain did not trust Qatar. He was speaking in London during a visit intended to rally diplomatic support for the Qatar embargo, the Guardian reported on Saturday.
“This is about behavioural change,” Gargash said. “If we get clear strategic signals that Qatar is going to change and it will stop funding violent Islamist militants that is the basis for a discussion, but we would need a monitoring system.
“We do not trust them. There is zero trust, but we need a monitoring system and we need our western friends to play a role in this,” he said.
Gargash said the monitoring would aim to ensure Qatar was no longer funding extremism, harbouring extremists in Doha, or providing support to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Al Qaeda.
Qatar has denied supporting the groups.
Countries including France, UK, Kuwait and Turkey have been trying to act as mediators, but the anti-Qatar alliance has been wary of setting out its detailed demands, the daily reported.
Gargash identified 59 individuals walking free in Doha that had been identified as terrorists or financiers of terrorism, including 14 that are sanctioned by the US State Department and nine by the United Nations.
He said it was like entering a crime scene and finding Qatar’s fingerprints in every room.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir showed no signs of backing down either, telling a press conference: “We have a list of grievances we shall give to Qataris fairly soon. It is about having a zero-tolerance policy.”
On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt broke diplomatic relations with Qatar and implemented a series of economic reprisals after claiming that Doha funded terrorist groups.
Several other countries followed suit.
IANS