Saudi Arabia insisted on Tuesday that its neighbour Qatar was not under blockade as a Gulf diplomatic dispute escalated amid increasing international concern over its effects on ordinary people. The gas-rich emirate’s only land border is with the Saudi kingdom, and the closure of both it and Saudi, Bahraini and Emirati airspace to Qatar Airways … Read more
In a series of morning tweets, President Donald Trump threw Washington’s relations with Doha into deep crisis on Tuesday and raised doubts about the future of the largest US air base in the Middle East. Trump publicly accused key regional ally Qatar of funding extremism, while tacitly backing a blockade of the emirate, home to … Read more
The US ambassador to Qatar has expressed her dissatisfaction with political events back home in a decidedly undiplomatic message posted on social media. Dana Shell Smith, who has been the American envoy to the Gulf emirate since 2014, took to Twitter in the hours after the dramatic sacking of FBI director James Comey by President … Read more