Gulf states try to paper over the cracks

On 23 April, Qatari foreign minister Khalid Bin Mohammed Al-Attiyah declared the rift between Doha and other Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states “over”. “For the brothers in the Gulf Co-operation Council the dispute is over,” he told a news conference in Kuwait, after a meeting with his Kuwait counterpart Sheikh Sabah Khalid Al-Sabah, during which several memorandums of understanding were signed. “Brothers in the GCC states arrived at understandings which are not considered to be concessions by any party.” The dispute he referred to was that surrounding the 5 March withdrawal of ambassadors from Doha by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. Two months on, there has been no official word on the return of the diplomats, but Qatar appears keen – as it has since the spat began - to play down Gulf differences.