The imminent establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and two Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, is part of an on-going process of security cooperation going back many years. While that robs the event of some drama, it also increases its significance. It means that the process of ending the era of Arab-Israeli confrontation will […]
When the Crown Prince of Bahrain and the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, they will not only be inking normalisation accords, they will be setting the stage for an even bigger prize: peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Read Here […]
Bahrain has joined the United Arab Emirates in agreeing to normalise relations with Israel, in a US-brokered deal that Palestinian leaders denounced as “another treacherous stab to the Palestinian cause”. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, announced the deal on Twitter on Friday after he spoke by phone to Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa […]
A key regional summit of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has been cut short and will conclude on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, with all the delegates leaving Kuwait after a closed session. The Kuwait summit takes place exactly six months after three of the member states severed diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar. Read […]
It remains unclear whether the upcoming Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Kuwait will have any positive effect on the ongoing fractures between Qatar and a number of Gulf states, analysts say, as the regional body gears into a symbolic rather than functional role. Read Here – Al Jazeera Also Read: What Is The GCC
The role of a dominant actor in an informal security alliance is to offer leadership and security aid to junior parties. To fulfill its role, Saudi Arabia needs financial resources and a committed group of leaders at home who are willing to build the alliance’s security architecture and provide additional benefits—including aid and military hardware—to […]
The most immediate example is the series of efforts by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to isolate, embargo, and boycott Qatar. Some 100 days have passed since they issued some 13 broad, categorical, and poorly defined demands that Qatar change its behaviour. These demands may or may not have been reduced to six […]
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) policies toward Yemen, Syria, Qatar, and Iran are failing. But the policy toward Iran shows the kingdom’s desperate attempt to lessen the Islamic republic’s growing power. The KSA is trying to choke Iran’s economy by steeply cutting its own oil output, hoping to halt Iran’s overtures to international businesses. […]
Qatar made a series of secret agreements with its Gulf neighbours in 2013 and 2014 barring support for opposition and hostile groups in those nations, as well as in Egypt and Yemen. The existence of the agreements has been known, but both the content and the documents themselves were kept secret due to the sensitivity of […]
Saudi Arabia and three of its Arab allies cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on Monday, furious with what they see as the tiny emirate’s tolerant attitude toward Iran and Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Read Here – Bloomberg
looking beyond borders 