Little-Known Qatari Sheikh Embraced by Saudi in Sudden Move (JMD quoted on Bloomberg
By
Zainab Fattah
August 20, 2017, 10:59 PM GMT+8 August 21,
2017, 5:43 PM GMT+8
·
Sheikh
Abdullah Bin Ali Al-Thani met Saudi king, crown prince
·
Royal
is seen as pressure card on Qatari rulers: analysts
The 10-week Gulf standoff has seen
Saudi Arabia opening its border with Qatar allowing pilgrims to travel to
Mecca. That's thrust a little-known Qatari sheikh into the limelight.
Bloomberg's Zainab Fattah reports on 'Bloomberg Markets: Middle East.' (Source:
Bloomberg)
A little-known Qatari sheikh has been thrust into
the limelight as a Saudi Arabia-led bloc tries to wring concessions from his
nation to end the political feud dividing the Persian Gulf.
Sheikh Abdullah Bin Ali Al-Thani, a descendant of
Qatar’s founder, was welcomed warmly in Saudi Arabia by Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman, then jetted off to Morocco, where Saudi King Salman hosted him at his
vacation spot in Tangier. And while the Qatari government said the sheikh was
on a personal visit, some media outlets close to the alliance portrayed his
meetings as a triumphant diplomatic effort.
Sheikh Abdullah said King Salman and his son agreed
to open Qatar’s only land border, snapped shut on June 5, to allow Muslim
pilgrims to travel to the holy city of Mecca. The king even offered to dispatch
planes at his own expense to fly in others and set up an operations center
under the sheikh’s command to help Qataris entangled in the crisis.
Sheikh Abdullah Bin Ali Al-Thani of
Qatar meets with Saudi King Salman in Tangier, Morocco.
Source: Saudi Press Agency
Saudi Arabia and allies that severed diplomatic and
transport links with Qatar in June have denied seeking regime change in Doha,
making the emergence and front-page treatment of the sheikh a surprising
development. Promoting him is probably part of a plan to add pressure on Qatari
ruler Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, who has refused to capitulate to the
bloc’s 13 conditions for ending the feud, said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political
analyst in the United Arab Emirates.
Qatari Policy
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and
Egypt accuse Qatar of destabilizing the Middle East by supporting Islamist
groups. Qatar rejects the charges and says Saudi Arabia is using the spat as a
pretext to try to impose its policies on the entire region.
“Saudi Arabia has many pressure tools that it
hasn’t used until now and this is one of them,” Abdulla said, adding that he
doesn’t believe the alliance is currently pursuing a policy to change the
Qatari leadership. Yet should Saudi Arabia decide that is needed, it can
mobilize a support network within Qatari society and the ruling family “to spur
a palace coup,” he said.
Al Bayan, a Dubai-owned daily, described Sheikh
Abdullah on its front page as “the voice of reason to whom the hearts of
Qataris have opened.” It also said that he’s known for being “widely accepted
within the Al Thani family in particular, and Qataris in general.”
Ruling Family
The sheikh is a scion of a ruling family branch
that was in power for decades until 1972. His brother, Ahmad, was deposed in 1972
by Sheikh Tamim’s grandfather, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news network said.
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The sheikh’s diplomatic exploits have turned him
into an instant social media celebrity. Within three days of joining Twitter,
his account has attracted more than 250,000 followers. He gave out contact
details of the operations center. Underscoring his reach, he said he also spoke
with the Saudi central bank governor, who denied that banks in the kingdom had
stopped “giving out Qatari riyals to Qatari citizens.”
“The king has honored me by accepting my mediation
on behalf of my people in Qatar,” he wrote.
The sheikh, who is married to a Saudi and spends
time in the kingdom, doesn’t represent a serious challenge to Emir Tamim, said
James Dorsey, a senior fellow for the Middle East and North Africa at Singapore’s
Nanyang Technological University.
“One would hope that the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia
are not entertaining any serious consideration of attempting to change the
regime in Qatar,” Dorsey said. “Absent that, it’s an ineffectual way of
needling the Qataris that may be as much for domestic as it is for Qatari
consumption.”
Resisting Resolution
Other mediation efforts by Kuwait’s emir and U.S.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who visited the region last month, have
failed to resolve the dispute.
Andreas Krieg, a lecturer in the department of
defense studies at King’s College in London, said the sheikh is a London-based
businessman with commercial interests in the Gulf, but lacks public support
that would help propel him to power. His emergence, however, serves as a way of
telling Qatari leaders and global powers that the crisis is far from over, he
said.
“The past couple of weeks we were thinking we will
see a de-escalation of the crisis as the Americans were focusing on the Saudis
to make some concessions to come to an agreement,” Krieg said.
— With assistance by Glen Carey
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