Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to discuss bilateral relations and the ongoing diplomatic crisis between Doha and several Arab countries.
The one-on-one talks took place in the Qatari emir's palace in Doha and lasted about two and a half hours. This engagement was later followed by discussions in an extended format.
The Turkish president is touring with a cohort of his country's senior officials, including Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekçi, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak, Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli, Chief of Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) head Hakan Fidan.
The visit was focused on "developments in Syria and Iraq, the fight against terrorism ... and the importance of protecting countries' sovereign rights", Erdoğan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalın said in Doha.
Erdoğan is currently on a tour of the Persian Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar as part of his efforts to solve the Gulf row. Erdoğan's AKP government faces a challenge in securing a breakthrough because of the increasingly warm ties, including the deployment of military forces, it has built with Qatar in recent years. While members of the anti-Qatar quartet have strong trade links with Turkey, its closeness to Qatar raises suspicions of its motives for them. Qatar has emerged as Turkey's top ally in the Middle East in recent years, with Ankara and Doha closely coordinating over issues including the Syria conflict where the two are staunch foes of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
On June 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain suspended diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar over allegations that Doha had too close ties with Iran and supported Islamist extremist groups. Qatar strongly denies the allegation and sees the dispute as politically motivated. The quartet demanded Doha accept a tough 13-point list of demands to end the rift, including shutting down news outlets including Al-Jazeera, cutting ties with Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, limiting ties with Iran and expelling Turkish troops stationed in the country. Qatar refused, arguing that the demands were an effort to undermine its sovereignty.
Erdoğan held talks on Sunday in Kuwait, which is leading mediation efforts in the crisis, and Saudi Arabia, where King Salman hailed the Turkish leader's "efforts in the fight against terrorism and its financing". During the visit, he held talks with King Salman and his presumed heir, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Brief statements of both meetings carried by the official Saudi Press Agency emphasised that the talks focused on ways to counter terrorism in addition to touching on bilateral and regional issues.
