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The Pakistani parliament’s decision not to send troops to join the Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis in Yemen was a real blow to Riyadh, and the Pakistani leadership has been eager to try to make amends. Following the 16 April visit of a special envoy, on 23 April, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif flew to Riyadh to smooth things over. Sharif is particularly close to the Saudis, who provided exile for him and dozens of family members after the 1999 coup by General Pervez Musharraf which removed him from power; Saudi Arabia has continued to be a close and important ally.

On 21 October, Qatar’s highest court upheld a 15-year prison sentence for Mohammed Al-Ajami, a poet arrested in 2011 and charged with insulting the emir and inciting to overthrow the ruling system (GSN 942/10, 937/6, 935/9). Al-Ajami, also known as Ibn Al-Dheeb, was initially sentenced to life for his outspokenness, but had his sentenced reduced by the appeals court. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, his only hope of release is an emiri pardon. According to Amnesty International, charges were brought in relation to a poem Al-Ajami composed in August 2010, while he was studying Arabic literature in Cairo. 


Donald Trump’s first phone call to a foreign leader, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, will have pleased Walid Phares, the Lebanese Maronite-born academic who has the ear of the US president-elect on foreign policy matters. The politics professor has spent the past 26 years pushing his robust anti-Islamist views, honed during the sectarian civil war in Lebanon. He has won an influential audience inside the Beltway in the process; he advised the failed Republican Party (GOP) candidate of 2012, Mitt Romney, and now is being used by the next occupant of the White House to provide guidance on the Middle East and anti-terrorism matters.

Saudi Arabia committed $150m to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), during an online summit hosted by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 4 June. The funds are a re-announcement of a contribution made in April, as part of pledges by G20 countries to deal with the coronavirus. Qatar also pledged $20m at June’s Global Vaccine Summit. The event raised a total of $8.8bn from 32 donor governments and 12 organisations, far ahead of its $7.4bn target.

A combination of the Yemen war and concerns around government human rights abuses is starting to affect the ability of Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries to procure arms from Europe, with the government of the Belgian region of Flanders blocking one export deal and German gun-maker Heckler & Koch reportedly pulling out of most international markets, including the GCC, because of difficulties in securing export permits from its government.

Deputy prime minister and presidential affairs minister Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan travelled to Algeria on 22 November for a one-day official visit. He was received on arrival at Houari Boumediene International Airport by Prime Minister Abdul Malik Salal and later held official talks with the PM and met with the ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who is rarely seen in public, to discuss co-operation in trade and economic development. During his visit, Sheikh Mansour also travelled to Ain Bouchekif, 270km southwest of Algiers, where he visited a Mercedes-Benz plant in which Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments has a stake; and to a horse breeding centre in Chaouchaoua in Tiaret province.

Since entering the cabinet as first deputy prime minister and defence minister on 12 December 2016, Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah’s eldest son has acquired a highly visible profile, publicly engaging with heads of state in the region, while simultaneously unfolding plans to reform the economy. Sheikh Nasser Al-Sabah Al-Sabah’s elevation to become the most senior cabinet member after prime minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah has underlined his status as a serious contender for the eventual succession.

It is a safe guess to assume that the overall direction of Saudi energy policy will rest unchanged, in the veteran hands of petroleum and mineral resources minister Ali Bin Ibrahim Al-Naimi, policy planners steeped in Saudi Aramco’s values and a Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources where the king’s son Prince Abdelaziz Bin Salman is an established player. Within this constellation of energy policy-making, institutional changes have, though, changed the princely pecking order – with Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS)’s dazzling rise.

A European satellite provider’s decision to take 19 Iranian state television and radio channels off air – following a two-year campaign by human rights organisations – has angered Tehran, which used them to spread its influence through Europe and the Middle East

Vultan Qaboos Bin Said Al-Said has held talks with senior officials in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The initialling of Shell’s gas joint venture with South Gas Company (SGC), more than two-and-a-half years after the heads of agreement between Shell and the Iraqi authorities were signed, effectively ends the long-running political battle against the project

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, visited the region on 1-2 April, stopping in Kuwait and the UAE for talks aimed at demonstrating willingness to make peace with Gulf neighbours. In Kuwait, he delivered an invitation to visit Iran from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, and said Rouhani was planning to announce an initiative to form a “co-operative regional body”, according to Kuwait’s state news agency Kuna. The co-operation could take many forms, he said, be it an organisation or an agreement.

The mood of crisis in Gulf affairs, with decisions on a war against Iraq perhaps just weeks away, is proving a delicate test for the West’s readiness to promote a democracy and human rights agenda.

It is unsurprising that the Gulf’s first sukuk default case is in Kuwait, where conventional and Islamic investment companies are under severe strain. The risk is systemic given that investment companies

Such is the desire to understand what some see as Qatar’s sudden move against Libya – after several years of apparently steady relations – that rumours of leading Qatari players’ childhood connections have emerged.