What can Turkey expect from Qatari-Gulf deal?
Turkey feels vindicated as al-Ula Declaration ends the blockade against Qatar.
The Kuwaiti emir’s proposal to end the more than three-year-old Qatar blockade was accepted just as the Gulf Cooperation Council summit started on Jan. 5 in the historic city of al-Ula, Saudi Arabia. All four states — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt — that endorsed the blockade against Qatar gave up on their 13 original conditions. Doha has fully recovered its position and has managed to diversify its security and trading partners.
“We may never know the exact feelings of [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan while watching [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed] bin Salman hug Erdogan’s good friend [Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad] Al Thani, but it was not a surprise. Ankara was expecting and preparing for this. We welcome al Ula Declaration as the good first step for Abu Dhabi to acknowledge its mistakes,” a senior Justice and Development Party (AKP) bureaucrat working for the Ministry of Defense told Al-Monitor.
