US-Kuwaiti bid to broker Saudi-Qatar feud stalls

Saudi Arabia on Saturday suspended any dialogue with Qatar, accusing it of "distorting facts", just after the first phone call hailed as a breakthrough between Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani took place on Friday to discuss their dispute. The call was the outcome of an effort by US President Donald Trump and Kuwait Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah, on a visit to the White House, to broker the dispute.

For three months, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt have boycotted Qatar and cut off trade ties wit Doha, accusing the Qataris of supporting extremist Muslim terrorists and close ties with Tehran. The Kuwait ruler’s effort to patch up the quarrel went nowhere. During the Kuwait emir’s White House visit on Thursday, Sept. 7, it was agreed that Trump would try his hand and persuading Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim to put in a call to the Saudi Crown Prince, their first since relations were broken off.

Shortly after the conversation took place, the Qatari News Agency reported that Sheikh Tamim  had welcomed the proposal of Prince Mohammedl "to assign two envoys to resolve controversial issues in a way that does not affect the sovereignty of the states.”
The Saudis, however, , denied this, saying: "What was published on the Qatar News Agency is a continuation of the distortion of the Qatari authority of the facts," said an official in Riyadh. "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announces the suspension of any dialogue or communication with the authority in Qatar until a clear statement is issued clarifying its position in public."