Doha: Qatar announced, on Sunday, the appointment of its ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after six years of strained relations over a political dispute, the Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.
Sultan Salmeen Saeed Al Mansouri was appointed as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the UAE by Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.
Previously, Al Mansouri served as Qatar’s ambassador to China and Austria.
The decision shall come into effect from the date of its issuance and publication in the Official Gazette.
The appointment represents the last step in rapprochement between the two countries after ending the Gulf dispute.
On June 19, the UAE and Qatar restored diplomatic representation between them by resuming the work of the UAE embassy in Doha, the Qatari embassy in Abu Dhabi and its consulate in Dubai.
The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the decision to reopen the two embassies came “based on the Al-Ula agreement and the two countries’ keenness to strengthen bilateral relations,” referring to the historic 2021 agreement that ended the worst rift in the region.
In 2017, UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain cut off relations with Qatar accusing it of supporting Islamist movements that were considered dangerous, along with Doha’s relations with Iran and Turkey.
In January 2021, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt ended a three-and-a-half-year ban on Qatar.
Riyadh and Cairo were the first to reappoint ambassadors to Doha in 2021 following a Saudi-led AlUla agreement to end the dispute, while Bahrain announced in April that it had decided to restore diplomatic relations.
