WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is backing Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations in taking what he says is a “hardline” on Qatar, and said perhaps the rift will be “the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism.” He did not say how the Arab blockade might do that.

Trump says on Twitter that it was good to see that his visit to Saudi Arabia was “already paying off.” Trump met with leaders from Arab and Muslim nations there and he says Tuesday that “they said they would take a hard line on funding extremism.” He says that “all reference was pointing to Qatar.”

He tweets: “Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!”

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the region have accused Qatar of funding terror groups and cozying up to Iran. Qatar denies that accusation.

Qatar is home to a large U.S. military base.</s>SkyNews Arabia is reporting that Saudi Arabia has given Qatar a 24 hours ultimatum, starting tonight, to fulfill 10 conditions.

The list of demands from Saudi Arabia has been handed to Kuwait, which is currently mediating the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Zerohedge is reporting that among the key demands by Saudi Arabia is that Qatar end all ties Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Aside from this key demand, little additional information on the Ultimatum and more importantly what happens should Qatar not comply, has been provided to media.

Kuwait’s Emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, arrived home after a short visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday during which he held talks with the Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz on ways to defuse an escalating crisis between Arab countries and Qatar. No details were given on the talks. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut diplomatic relations with Qatar on Monday in a coordinated move, accusing the peninsula of supporting “terrorists” and Iran.

In an interview on Monday with Al Jazeera, Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said Kuwait’s ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, had asked Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Qatar’s ruling emir, to hold off on giving a speech about the crisis late on Tuesday night.

“He received a call from the emir of Kuwait asking him to postpone it in order to give time to solve the crisis,” Sheikh Mohammed said.

“I think the Kuwaitis as well as Omanis…fear the prospects of these tensions escalating in ways which could undermine the interest of all six members of the GCC.” “There are many analysts who believe that a potential break-up of the GCC has to be considered right now.”

Cafiero added that if tension escalates, some have warned of a “military confrontation”.

Al-Ahmed warned that a full-scale invasion of Qatar could occur much sooner than anyone anticipated.

“Check on the frequency of bombings in Yemen…A key sign will be if there is a cessation or major reduction in the number of Saudi air strikes being conducted against the rebel forces in Yemen. That would indicate the Saudis are massing their forces for a sudden move against Qatar instead.”

Al-Ahmed further claimed that Trump has signed off on a Saudi invasion of Qatar…“I have it on good authority that Trump has already told the Saudis he would have no objection.”

If the Saudis invaded Qatar, they would also be strongly supported by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, especially the Kingdom of Bahrain which hosts the US Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf, al-Ahmed stated…

Al-Ahmed notes that Saudi Arabia’s leaders are determined to make Qatar into a subservient satellite of Riyadh, much like the current government in Yemen…</s>Turkey’s parliament on Wednesday ratified two deals on deploying troops in Qatar and training the nation's gendarmerie force, Anadolu reported.

The votes came just days after five Arab countries cut ties with Qatar.

The deal on deploying troops on Qatari soil to improve the country's army and boost military cooperation was signed in April 2016, in the Gulf country’s capital Doha.

Under the bill, the armies of the two countries will also be able to carry out joint exercises. The move aims to contribute to regional and world peace.

In addition, the Turkish gendarmerie will be able to train Qatar’s gendarmerie forces under a deal between the two countries’ interior ministries signed in December 2015.

On Monday, five Arab countries - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Yemen - cut ties with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism.

The escalation came two weeks after the website of Qatar’s official news agency was allegedly hacked by unknown individuals who reportedly published statements attributed to the country’s Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

The incident triggered a diplomatic row between Qatar and its neighbors.</s>DUBAI: One of the first signs of the crisis in which four Gulf states have cut ties with Qatar came in a phone call from an anxious government adviser to a Reuters journalist early on May 24.

 

 In the 6.00 a.m. call, he denied Qatar's emir made comments reported by the state-run news agency criticising hostility to Iran, sympathising with three Islamist groups, accusing Saudi Arabia of adopting an extremist ideology that fosters terrorism and suggesting Donald Trump may not last long as U.S. president.

 

 The adviser repeated a statement released hours earlier which said the news agency had been hacked, seeming unaware that Reuters had already reported the denial.

 

 The unusual timing of the call and the adviser's haste to get the message across pointed to Qatar's deep concern about the impact the remarks attributed to the emir could have.

 

 As anger mounted in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Qatar's foreign minister tried to limit the fallout.

 

 Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told a news conference that Qatar, host to the biggest U.S. military base in the Middle East, wanted to maintain brotherly ties with its powerful neighbours in a region critical to world energy supplies.

 

 To outside observers, it was unclear whether the Qatar News Agency had indeed been hacked or whether an editor had published remarks which the emir later regretted saying.

 

 But to Qatar's neighbours the question was irrelevant: the comments reflected the broad lines of Qatar's independent-minded foreign policy, which critics say has destabilised the region through its alliance with Islamist armed groups and cordial ties with Iran.

 

 Officials in the Gulf say the comments marked a turning point, prompting Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to cut relations with Qatar in the biggest diplomatic shock in the region for years.

 

 TROUBLE EVIDENT 

 For Riyadh, trouble was also evident elsewhere.

 

 Some Qatari-funded anti-Saudi websites had begun reporting on what they said were calls for protests against the kingdom's rulers, stirring memories of the Arab Spring revolutions that toppled the leaders of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

 

 "They (Qataris) hired (financed) influential Saudi preachers, religious figures, journalists and academics to incite against Saudi Arabia," one Gulf source told Reuters. "The Saudis had had it with Qatar. The Qataris keep channels open with Iran in various capitals and they campaign against the Egyptian state."

 

 The Saudis had reached a "dead end" with Qatar and decided for the first time in 20 years to take action to damage its neighbour's interests, the source added.

 

 Qatar denies inciting unrest in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere.

 

 Another factor that pushed the four Sunni states over the line, according to Gulf officials, was last month's visit to Saudi Arabia by Trump, who has reversed the policies of predecessor Barack Obama, thrown his weight behind the kingdom and its allies and expressed misgivings about Iran.

 

 No sooner had Trump left Riyadh than the United States' partners in the region moved against Qatar and its young emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, another American ally.

 

 A series of flashpoints across the region in the days following Trump's visit heightened tensions that had been building for months and removed any hope among Qatar's neighbours of peeling it away from Iran and the Islamist groups it has engaged with for years.

 

 Those tensions spilled into the public arena less than 48 hours after the Qatari emir took part in the Riyadh summit attended by Trump which was meant to showcase U.S. support for solidarity of Sunni Muslim nations.

 

 The alleged hacking incident came days after Qatar complained it was the target of "an orchestrated barrage" of criticism by unknown parties, in the run-up to Trump's visit.

 

 "After the Tamim speech, things went up an extra notch," a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

 

 "The catalogue is so wide... It is an accumulation," Anwar Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs told Reuters. "It could have happened in March, it could have happened in December. But it was bound to happen. It was something that was ready to explode."

 

 Gargash confirmed there were several major irritants that sped up the process. These included the comments attributed to the emir, UAE accusations that Qatar has undermined the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, and Qatar's handling of a hostage crisis involving 24 members of the ruling elite in which it paid ransom money to Islamist groups in Iraq an Syria.

 

 An annual phone call to mark the start of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan between Tamim and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on May 27 aggravated the situation further. Iran's Shi'ite-led government and Saudi Arabia's Sunni rulers compete for influence in the region and Jean-Marc Rickli, a Geneva-based risk analyst, called that a "diplomatic mistake (which) Saudi Arabia and the UAE jumped on".

 

 Kuwait's emir offered to mediate but when Tamim attended an iftar (fast-breaking) Ramadan meal with him on May 30, Tamim left early, apparently unwilling to discuss the row, a Kuwaiti newspaper editor regularly briefed by officials told Reuters.

 

 ROLLING MEETINGS 

 The decision to cut ties with Qatar took shape in a rolling series of meetings over several weeks, said a Gulf Arab source.

 

 But a second source said an important moment came last Saturday when Saudi King Salman and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, met for iftar in Jeddah. It is likely that Egypt came on board two days later, during a visit to Cairo by the Saudi foreign minister.

 

 At dawn on Monday, those governments and Bahrain made a series of rapid fire announcements, revealing the move's careful orchestration and pre-planning.

 

 A Western diplomat in Doha said the move was "clearly tied" to Trump's visit, suggesting it had emboldened Saudi Arabia and the UAE to act.

 

 "The opportunity presented itself with the Trump visit and Trump's presidency in general," a former U.S. ambassador to Doha told Reuters, suggesting the move had been in the works for two or three months.

 

 "This is well choreographed. Everything came together at the same time."

 

 U.S. officials were blindsided by Saudi Arabia's decision to sever ties with Qatar, current and former U.S. officials told Reuters.

 

 A senior administration official said Washington had no indication at the Riyadh summit that the move was about to happen but on Tuesday morning Trump directly waded into the dispute by praising the Arab powers' decisions against Qatar.

 

 The Pentagon, mindful of the U.S. military base in Qatar, renewed its praise for Doha after Trump's intervention -- showing again how U.S. officials are walking a tightrope as Trump's tweets raise questions about existing policy and the scripted talking points used to explain it.

 

 Reports that Qatari officials paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran-backed groups in an April deal to free 26 of its citizens kidnapped in Iraq last year has also been an irritant in relations between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

 

 Qatar denies trying to pay ransom money to secure the release of the hostages, although foreign minister al-Thani said it sent money "to support the authorities in the release of Qatari abductees".</s>The West African country of Mauritania, a member of the Arab League, severed ties with Qatar on Tuesday over allegations it “supports terrorists”, the state news agency reported, and OPEC member Gabon also condemned the small Gulf Arab state.

The Arab world’s biggest powers, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, cut diplomatic relations with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and Iran. Qatar vehemently denies the claims.

“The state of Qatar has linked its policies … in support of terrorist organisations and the propagation of extremist ideas,” the Mauritanian ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement published in Arabic by the Mauritanian Information Agency.

“This has resulted in heavy losses to human life in these Arab countries, in Europe and throughout the world,” it said. Oil producer Gabon condemned Qatar for “failing to respect international commitments and agreements on counter-terrorism,” a statement from its foreign ministry said, The Central African nation was “preoccupied with Qatar’s continuing support for terrorist groups”, it said.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>Qatar Airways’ plan to launch its first Irish route will go ahead on schedule and will be unaffected by four of Qatar’s Arab neighbours cutting diplomatic ties with the country.

Saudi Arabia — the only country to share a land border with Qatar — has closed the border, cut off trade and revoked Qatar Airways’ Saudi operating licence over allegations of Qatari support for extremist groups.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt have also cut ties with Qatar and have suspended all flights to and from the country.

In April, Qatar Airways announced its debut Irish route — marking Ireland’s first ever link with the Gulf state. The daily Dublin-Doha service will launch, as planned, next Monday and will provide Irish passengers with connection opportunities to more than 150 destinations including to the Far East and Australia.

At the time of the announcement, Qatar’s chief executive, Akbar al-Baker, called Dublin “an important and growing international hub,” adding that “Ireland’s increasing global presence makes the route an attractive investment”.

A spokesperson for the airline confirmed plans for the Irish route will be unaffected by diplomatic tensions in the Middle East.

“Qatar Airways operations are running as normal, with no disruptions to flights with the exception of those to the four countries Qatar Airways has been restricted to fly to,” said the spokesperson

“At Qatar Airways, our passengers remain our utmost priority and we will continue to ensure they have a seamless journey to their final destinations.”

It remains unclear, however, what may happen should Qatar Airways be shut out of neighbouring airspace.

Qatar Airways is a major shareholder in Aer Lingus owner International Airlines Group (IAG), upping its stake to 20% in April 2016. There was no indication that Qatar Airways’ situation would affect IAG operations. A spokesperson for IAG said the group did not comment on shareholders.

A spokesperson for British Airways (BA), which is also owned by IAG, said that the airline was continuing to operate a full schedule to Doha.

Meanwhile, figues show that Europe’s leading low-cost carriers saw strong passenger growth last month. Ryanair carried 11.8m people across its European route network in May, 11% up on a year-on-year basis; with load factor for the month — which shows how full its planes were — at 95%.

IAG’s group traffic in May increased almost 2% compared to the same month in 2016. The company said an independent investigation will examine every aspect of the power failure that caused an IT meltdown for BA, disrupting thousands of passengers, during the UK’s May bank holiday weekend.

The meltdown is estimated to have cost the airline up to €100m and led passenger numbers to decline by almost 2%. Almost 700 flights were cancelled.

EasyJet’s May traffic was up 9.5% year-on-year, with the airline carrying 7.5m passengers. Load factor was flat at 91.5%.

Norwegian Air carried 2.9m passengers in May, up 11% year-on-year. The company will launch the first ever transatlantic flight from Cork to Providence in Rhode Island next month. Wizz Air saw annualised passenger growth of 22% in May.</s>DUBAI, June 7 (Reuters) - A preliminary investigation has confirmed that Qatar's state news agency was hacked, and false statements attributed to the country's ruler were posted that helped ignite a rift with other Gulf states, the Qatari foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and several other countries cut their ties with Doha on Monday in part because of comments posted briefly on the Qatar News Agency's website on May 23.

The article quoted Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani as cautioning against confrontation with Iran, as well as defending the Palestinian group Hamas and Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shi'ite movement allied with Tehran.

"The Ministry said the investigation team confirmed that the piracy process had used high techniques and innovative methods by exploiting an electronic gap on the website of the Qatar News Agency," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It did not say who might have carried out the hack.

U.S. and European officials said that while United States government agencies and experts were convinced that the news agency and the Qatari government's Twitter feed were hacked, they have not yet determined who did the hacking.

A CNN report quoted unidentified U.S. officials briefed on the investigation as saying that Russian hackers were suspected. Moscow said the report was false.

One U.S. intelligence official said that while Russia has the expertise and an incentive to sow division among Arab states allied with the United States, Russian hackers were available for hire to other countries and criminal groups.

Arab countries at odds with Qatar accuse it of supporting militant groups and advancing their arch-rival Iran's agenda in the region - charges Doha calls baseless.

U.S. military officials, also speaking anonymously to discuss political issues, said the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar is vital to American air support against Iranian paramilitaries and Iranian-backed forces on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war.

Qatar's foreign ministry thanked the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the British National Crime Agency for cooperating in the investigation, without elaborating. (Reporting by Noah Browning in Dubai; additional reporting by Mark Hosenball and John Walcott in Washington; editing by Grant McCool)</s>Thus, the Comoros has become the ninth country to sever ties with the Persian Gulf state.

On June 5, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates severed diplomatic relations with Qatar. The states accused Qatar of supporting terrorist groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist movement, as well as of interfering in other countries' domestic affairs. Libya made a similar decision. Yemen cut diplomatic relations citing Doha's links with Houthis. The Maldives took the same step, citing extremism and terrorism concerns. Mauritius joined the boycott. Mauritania broke off diplomatic ties with Qatar while Jordan downgraded ties with the country on June 6.</s>ANKARA, June 7 (Reuters) - Turkey's parliament is expected to fast-track on Wednesday a draft bill allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar, officials from the ruling AK Party and the nationalist opposition said.

The move appears to support the Gulf Arab country as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar and closed their airspace to commercial flights on Monday, charging it with financing militant groups.

Qatar vehemently denies the accusations. It is the worst split between powerful Arab states in decades.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has criticised the Arab states' move, saying isolating Qatar and imposing sanctions will not resolve any problems and adding that Ankara will do everything in its power to help end the crisis.

Turkey has maintained good relations with Qatar as well as several of its Gulf Arab neighbours. Turkey and Qatar have both provided support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and backed rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Lawmakers from Erdogan's AK Party have proposed debating two pieces of legislation: allowing Turkish troops to be deployed in Qatar and approving an accord between the two countries on military training cooperation, AKP and nationalist opposition officials said.

Both draft bills, which were drawn up before the spat between Qatar and its Arab neighbours erupted, are expected to be approved by the Ankara parliament later on Wednesday.

Turkey set up a military base in Qatar, its first such installation in the Middle East, as part of an agreement signed in 2014. In 2016 Ahmet Davutoglu, then Turkish prime minister, visited the base where 150 troops have already been stationed, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported.

In an interview with Reuters in late 2015, Ahmet Demirok, Turkey's ambassador to Qatar at the time, said 3,000 ground troops would eventually be deployed at the base, planned to serve primarily as a venue for joint training exercises. (Reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Daren Butler and Gareth Jones)</s>Jail term up to 15 years and $136,000 fines could be handed out to offenders, attorney general statement says.

The United Arab Emirates has banned people from publishing expressions of sympathy towards Qatar and will punish offenders with a jail term of up to 15 years, the UAE-based newspaper Gulf News and pan-Arab channel Al-Arabiya reported.

In a statement released on Wednesday, UAE's Attorney-General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi said sympathising with Qatar was a cybercrime punishable by law.

"Strict and firm action will be taken against anyone who shows sympathy or any form of bias towards Qatar, or against anyone who objects to the position of the United Arab Emirates, whether it be through the means of social media, or any type of written, visual or verbal form," Gulf News quoted Shamsi as saying in the statement.

The Federal Public Prosecution also announced that according to the Federal Penal Code and the Federal law decree on Combating Information Technology Crimes, anyone who threaten the interests, national unity and stability of the UAE will face a jail term from three to 15 years, and a fine not less than AED 500,000 ($136,000).

Since the diplomatic row erupted, slogans against and in support of Qatar have been among the top topics discussed on Twitter in Arabic, which is a hugely popular medium of expression in the Arab world, particularly in Saudi Arabia.

Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates severed diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting "extremism".

The dispute between Qatar and the Arab countries escalated after a recent hack of Qatar's state-run news agency.

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told reporters in Paris that Qatar must end its support for the Palestinian group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood before ties with other Arab Gulf states could be restored.

Hamas said in a statement that al-Jubeir's remarks "constitute a shock for our Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic nations".

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel accused US President Donald Trump of stirring up conflicts in the Middle East and risking a new arms race.

The dispute comes less than a month after Trump visited Saudi Arabia and called for Muslim nations to unite against "extremism".

Qatar said there was "no legitimate justification" for several nations cutting diplomatic ties and the decision was in "violation of its sovereignty".
The Saudi Arabia-led bloc against Qatar issues a "terror list" against the peninsula.