Close Al Jazeera and all of its affiliates, shut down Turkey’s new military base in Qatar, reduce diplomatic ties with Iran and submit to regular compliance audits for the next 10 years.
Those are just some of the demands that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt are making of Qatar nearly three weeks after imposing a blockade on the country, according to the Associated Press.
A list of 13 points was given to Qatar through mediator Kuwait this week, the newswire reports.
Qatar has the right to chart its own course, without the interference of other nations, and that is what we can and will do.
— Meshal Hamad AlThani (@Amb_AlThani) June 22, 2017
Authorities have not yet commented on the demands, but Qatari officials have previously already said that they would not allow other nations to dictate their foreign policy.
Other demands
Many of the points on the list have already been discussed in some capacity by various Arab media outlets.
They include demanding that Qatar sever all ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda and ISIS, among other groups.
#QATAR : Unverified English List of Demands handed to Doha by Kuwait from Saudi , UAE, Egypt, Bahrain pic.twitter.com/KWiTxppZit
— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) June 23, 2017
Perhaps more surprisingly, the four countries want Qatar to stop naturalizing their citizens.
Additionally, they have ordered authorities to expel their citizens currently within Qatar to keep the nation “from meddling in their internal affairs,” AP reports.
This point goes back to the 2014 Gulf dispute. At the time, Bahrain accused Qatar of harming its national security by naturalizing some of its Sunni citizens.
This apparently upset Bahrain’s Sunni/Shia demographic balance.
Compensation sought
Another demand is that Qatar hand over anyone wanted by the four nations on terrorism-related charges. For Egypt, this would mean Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born Qatari cleric.
However, officials have already previously said they will not extradite Qatari citizens to other countries for purported crimes.
According to Al Jazeera, the four nations are also seeking an unspecified amount of compensation from Qatar for any harm their foreign policy has done over the past several years.
The country has 10 days to comply with this list of demands.
Thoughts?
