U.S. Says Dispute Between Qatar and Neighbors at Impasse
And in a joint statement, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt
and Bahrain said Qatar "has worked to thwart the efforts and diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis." The dispute among the mostly Sunni Muslim nations puts a host of top United States priorities at risk, including the effort to defeat the Islamic State and rebuild portions of Iraq and Syria that have been devastated by three years of fighting.
On Thursday, Ms. Nauert praised a Kuwaiti effort to mediate the dispute and said
that Mr. Tillerson "has made himself available to all sides of this matter." "We believe that overall, the fight against terrorism is something that will bring all these countries together eventually, because we still have that shared fight.
But Senator Bob Corker, Republican from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has pledged to delay arms sales to
several of the countries — including Saudi Arabia, which agreed in May to buy to $110 billion in weapons — until the dispute is resolved.
President Trump, by contrast, has sided with the Saudis,
and accused Qatar of being a "funder of terrorism at a very high level." At odds with his own president, Mr. Tillerson has largely washed his hands of the impasse, saying the nations should work out a resolution on their own.
The State Department announced late Thursday night
that Mr. Tillerson would travel next week to Kuwait, where negotiations between Qatar and the four Arab nations are ongoing.