20 JUN 2017: The CEO of Qatar Airways said Monday that the blockade imposed on his country by Gulf neighbours “will leave a lasting wound” and that he expects rapid US diplomatic intervention to resolve the standoff.
“People will not forget,” Akbar Al Baker told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the Paris Air Show. “People will have long, long memories and especially the way it has been done, where families are split, where children have been removed from school, when … loved ones have been taken away from their husbands and their wives. I think this generation, this entire generation, will never forget what happened.”
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut ties with Qatar this month and blocked air, sea and land traffic with Qatar over its support for Islamist groups and ties with Iran.
Al Baker said he expects Donald Trump will intervene “to make sure that this blockade is lifted soonest and that life in our region comes backs to normal, especially since he knows that we are part of his alliance against terrorism and that we are a major player in his strategy in the region.”
Diplomacy- Trump style
Given Trump’s equivocation on the issue and his complete inability to decide which side he is on – this seems a long shot.
At the conference of Arab nations, Trump met personally with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, telling him, “We are friends. We’ve been friends now for a long time … Our relationship is extremely good.”
Reportedly he told the Sheik, “One of the things we will discuss is the purchase of lots of beautiful military equipment.”
Days after when the Arab nations cut ties with Qatar, there was no mention of ‘beautiful military equipment for Qatar, Trump gave himself a pat on the back, “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology,” he tweeted. “Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!”
Later he added, “Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!”
The following day he offered to personally broker a resolution to the Persian Gulf’s escalating diplomatic crisis, despite his suggestion only a day earlier that the tiny gas-rich nation enables terrorism.
Then just days later, Trump ramped up pressure on Qatar to stop what he called a “high level” of financial support of terrorism, even as his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, tried to calm the diplomatic crisis in the Persian Gulf by urging Qatar’s neighbours to ease their blockade and calling for “calm and thoughtful dialogue.”
An hour after delivering that message, Tillerson listened to Trump enthusiastically embrace the move by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others to punish Qatar.
“The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level,” Trump said, echoing an allegation the Saudi-led group has used to justify cutting diplomatic ties to the tiny gas-rich country. “We have to stop the funding of terrorism.”
Customers returning
Al Baker called the blockade illegal and said customers are returning to Qatar Airways and again using Qatar as an aviation hub after an initial hit to business.
“The impact has not been what our neighbours expected it to be,” Al Baker said at the Paris show, where Qatar Airways unveiled luxurious new seating in business class.
“They don’t want Qatar to have an independent foreign policy. They want Qatar to be subservient to their policies and this is not going to happen,” he added.