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Washington Worried about Qatar’s Behaviors, Wants to Redirect it to Right Track | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Rex Tillerson. Reuters


London, Washington – The White House said on Monday that US President Donald Trump is committed to working to deescalate tensions in Gulf after some countries broke ties with Qatar.

The United States does not want to see a “permanent rift” among Gulf countries, a senior US administration official said, Reuters reported.

The official, however, added: “There’s an acknowledgment that a lot of Qatari behavior is quite worrisome not just to our Gulf neighbors but to the US.”

“We want to bring them in the right direction.”

For his part, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Gulf states to stay united and work out their differences.

“We certainly would encourage the parties to sit down together and address these differences,” he said while in Sydney.

“If there’s any role that we can play in terms of helping them address those, we think it is important that the GCC Remain united.”

Tillerson said despite the impasse, he did not expect it to have “any significant impact, if any impact at all, on the unified fight against terrorism in the region or globally,” which was supported by US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.

Mattis, speaking alongside Tillerson in Australia, also said he doesn’t believe the rift will affect the ISIS fight.

“I am positive there will be no implications coming out of this dramatic situation at all, and I say that based on the commitment that each of these nations that you just referred to have made to this fight,” Mattis said.

Mattis also criticized Iran because of its efforts to destabilize the region, noting the Iranian support for the Head of Syrian regime and its role in the war in Yemen.

For his part, Spokesman at US Air Forces Central Command Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart told Reuters: “We’ve seen no impact to our operations and all flights continue as planned.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a phone conservation with his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani on Monday, called for a resolution to differences between Qatar and other Arab countries through talks, the ministry said.

It also said “a serous concern has been expressed by the appearance of a new hotbed of tension within the Arab world”.