In a climate of outright confrontation, even the Gulf monarchies have been overtaken by a series of unprecedented events. The differences between Qatar on one side, and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on the other, have escalated into a full-blown diplomatic crisis with outcomes difficult to foresee.
Officially, everything started with statements made by Qatari emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani that appeared on the Qatar News Agency (QNA) on May 23, 2017. A few hours before the conference between the 50 Arab countries and the US President, Al Thani was reported to have said the same words that appeared on QNA. The speech was very indulgent towards Iran and described the idea of an «Arab NATO» as unnecessary. The exact words are not known because the event in which Al Thani had made such incendiary remarks concerned military matters and was thus not accessible to the general public. Especially to be noted is that QNA denies having published words in question and attributed them to a cyber-attack.
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