Saudi, UAE show signals of easing tensions with Qatar

Photo taken on June 5, 2017 shows the Embassy of Qatar in Manama, Bahrain. Bahrain announced Monday it cut ties with Qatar, accusing the country of disturbing its security and stability, according to the Bahrain News Agency. [Photo/Xinhua]

DUBAI - The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia showed signals of easing tensions with Qatar on Sunday, after a week of a growing diplomatic row with Doha.

Earlier in the day, UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Bin Saud both directed that lenience should be shown for Qatari-Emirati and Qatari-Saudi families on humanitarian grounds.

"Is it the beginning of reason and wisdom?" Anwar Mohammed Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said on his twitter account.

Also on Sunday, Kuwait said Qatar was ready to listen to the concerns of Gulf Arab states that have severed diplomatic and economic ties with it, Saudi daily Arab News reported.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain cut their diplomatic relations with Qatar, closed their air, sea and land access to it and ordered Qatari citizens to leave their countries within two weeks, accusing the gas-rich peninsula state of sponsoring terrorist organizations, including Al Qaida-linked groups in the Syrian civil war, and the politics of Iran, which Qatar has repeatedly denied.

Scores of Arab and Middle Eastern nations including Libya, Yemen, Mauritania, Niger and Jordan later joined the three countries, cutting or reducing diplomatic ties with Doha.