Less that two hours after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to bring peace between two of America’s key West Asian partners, Qatar and Saudi Arabia that are on a collusion course , President Donald Trump took a different approach.
The President publicly called Qatar a “funder of terrorism,” and thanked “Saudi Arabia, and my friend, King Salman,” in a move that could undermine American efforts to deal with the flare-up.
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Qatar is the base of American military’s Central Command. Mr. Tillerson had called on Saudi Arabia and other countries to lift the blockade they have imposed on Qatar as it was creating a humanitarian crisis besides impeding American-led military operation against the Islamic State in the region.
When Mr. Trump spoke to the press shortly after the Secretary’s statement, he did not repeat the call for lifting the blockade and instead launched into a lengthy criticism of Qatar.
“The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level, and in the wake of that conference (the recent conference of Muslims countries in Riyadh that he attended), nations came together and spoke to me about confronting Qatar over its behavior. So we had a decision to make: Do we take the easy road, or do we finally take a hard but necessary action? We have to stop the funding of terrorism. I decided, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, our great generals and military people, the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding -- they have to end that funding -- and its extremist ideology in terms of funding,” the President said.
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But the tone and tenor Mr. Tillerson’s statement only 90 minutes earlier was more about the crisis created by the blockade.
“The emir of Qatar has made progress in halting financial support and expelling terrorist elements from his country, but he must do more and he must do it more quickly. …Others must also continue to eliminate factions of support for violent organizations within their own borders,” the Secretary said.
Calling upon Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt to ease the blockade against Qatar, Mr. Tillerson said the U.S supported the mediation efforts by the emir of Kuwait to find a resolution to the crisis.
“There are humanitarian consequences to this blockade. We are seeing shortages of food, families are being forcibly separated, and children pulled out of school. We believe these are unintended consequences, especially during this Holy Month of Ramadan, but they can be addressed immediately. The blockade is also impairing U.S. and other international business activities in the region and has created a hardship on the people of Qatar and the people whose livelihoods depend on commerce with Qatar. The blockade is hindering U.S. military actions in the region and the campaign against ISIS,” said Mr. Tillerson. available to resolve it.