The crisis between Qatar and the four Arab states - Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt- has witnessed mediation efforts, led primarily by Kuwait, that attempt to achieve convergence of views and a permanent solution. However, the developments of the crisis indicate that such efforts remain ineffective, which poses several questions about why these efforts have faltered.
Multiplicity of Mediators
A follow up of the attempts, or shows of preparedness to mediate between the parties to the Qatar crisis, reveals a multiplicity of offers to take up the role. At the regional level, Kuwait stands out as having made huge efforts to resolve the issue. Moreover, Morocco declared “positive neutrality” and showed willingness to play a mediation role to ease off the tensions. Sudan too has stepped in to take up a mediation role with President Omar al-Bashir visiting Saudi Arabia on June 19 to support Kuwait’s initiative. Turkey, since the onset of the crisis, offered to contribute towards finding a solution to the tensions with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu making a tour that took in Doha, Kuwait and Riyadh in mid June.
Beyond the region, at the international level, the United States remains a key actor that cannot be ignored in whatever attempts made to settle the current crisis. In this regard, the US Administration officials made contact with parties to the crisis. However, divisions inside the US government agencies over how to deal with the crisis have surfaced. In France, President Emmanuel Macron expressed his interest in resolving the Qatar crisis right after it broke out and made contacts with the involved parties and offered mediation. His Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian made a tour to the Arab Gulf states on July 15 and 16 during which he reaffirmed France’s desire to contribute towards the Kuwaiti mediation. For its part, Russia offered to help in mediating the crisis when its Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov received his Qatari counterpart Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Moscow on June 10.
Prominent Kuwaiti Role
Although there are several states that offered to mediate between the parties to the Qatari crisis, or took actual steps towards this effort, the Kuwaiti mediation stands out and, to date, remains the most prominent, in terms of seriousness where since the crisis broke out, the Emir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, has been making diligent efforts to ease off the tensions.
Mediation is not a new role for Kuwait. The Gulf Arab state intervened to settle several regional crises over the past years. For instance, Kuwait hosted last year several international meetings held to achieve a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Yemen. Before that, in 2014, Kuwait mediated in the intra-Gulf crisis that broke out after Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar.
Several factors can explain how Kuwait rose to prominence as a mediator in several crises. These include the “neutrality” of its foreign policy that bans taking sides with any party to any crisis, as well as the extensive experience of its ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.
Kuwait’s mediation in the Qatar crisis continues to receive regional and international support despite the fact that to date, it has not yielded any positive results.
This support was evidenced in the statements and announcements made by the states and influential organizations involved in the crisis. That is, the foreign ministers of Germany, Britain, France and the United States, during their Gulf tours during this month, reiterated their support for Kuwait’s mediation for a solution to the current crisis. Previously, on June 12, the Secretary General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit, voiced his support for the movements of the Emir of Kuwait a part of efforts to address the Qatar crisis.
Positive reactions and support to Kuwait’s mediation efforts have prompted Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad to announce, on July 11, that he is determined to continue his mediation efforts to solve the issue between Qatar and the four other Arab countries.
Causes of Faltering Mediation
Although several mediators stepped in to reduce tensions of the crisis between the parties to the Qatar crisis, their efforts have failed. This faltering mediation can be attributed to several factors of which the following stand out:
1- Lack of Seriousness: Except for Kuwait, the mediation efforts and even preparations to make them, on the regional and international levels, lack complete seriousness. Some mediators were content with making statements that were not coupled with tangible actions on the ground to bring parties to the crisis together and achieve convergence between their views. Rather, some mediators withdrew gradually as the crisis escalated.
2- Negative Neutrality. Some regional and international powers have been keen on showing a desire and preparedness to mediate between the parties to the Qatar crisis with the sole aim of proving their presence but have not announced any clear-cut and comprehensive mediation initiative. These mediating states have “held the stick from the middle” taking no sides without putting pressure on any party to the crisis to make concessions. Their aim was to preserve their interests with all parties. This was evident in some European states’ positions on the crisis.
3- Biased Mediators. Neutrality and keeping an equal distance from all involved parties are among the prerequisites of any successful mediation. Some mediation initiatives taken in the current crisis are evidently not committed to neutrality and even took sides with one side of the crisis. For instance, while Turkey announced that it is prepared to contribute to a solution to the crisis and intervened to converge the view of both sides, it was clear, right from the onset of the crisis, that it was siding with Qatar. In response to the measures taken by the states boycotting Qatar, Turkey sent troops and food supplies to Doha.
Moreover, partiality was evident during the recent Gulf tour of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson where he unilaterally signed with Qatar a memorandum of understanding combating the financing of terrorism. The details of the agreement were not disclosed. Tillerson even described Qatar's positions on the crisis as “very reasonable”.
4- Rifts within mediating states. Some states that offered to mediate in the Qatar crisis already suffer from division between their government agencies around how to deal with this crisis. For instance, such divisions are evident within the United States. While president Donald Trump tends to support the Quartet countries that call for combatting terrorism. He even accused Qatar of funding terrorism at a “high level”, his Department of State and Department of Defense are keen on taking “fairly balanced” positions towards the parties to the crises to preserve Washington’s common interests with all involved parties. This contrast rendered the US position ineffective and unable to resolve the crisis through a settlement that is acceptable for all parties.
5- Lack of an effective alternative. Efforts being made to resolve the crisis are focused on Kuwaiti mediation which has received considerable regional and international support. Unified and concrete mediation efforts would produce several positive results. However, this has posed the problem of lack of alternative and effective mediation initiatives that can be sought in case Kuwait’s mediation fails.
6- Inflexibility. Each side of the crisis continue to be inflexible and maintain their positions refusing to make any concessions to the other. For their part, the group of four states boycotting Qatar insist that Qatar must comply with all of their 13 demands, and consider their measures against Doha as “boycott” - seen as a right guaranteed by international law- with the aim of preserving their own security and stability. On the other hand, Qatar refuses to comply with the legitimate demands of the four states and considers these demands as a surrender of its national sovereignty.
7- Lack of confidence. Due to a history of negative experiences with Qatar, the boycotting states do not believe that Qatar would comply to any agreements reached through mediation efforts. For one, Doha failed to comply to the provisions of the 2013 Riyadh Agreement Agreement and an 2014 supplementary agreement that states the executive mechanisms of the 2013 agreement. This was revealed on July 10 in copies of the agreements exclusively obtained by CNN.
The lack of confidence was evident in a joint statement issued by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt on July 11. The quartet demanded a that Qatar’s commitment to combating terrorism and terrorist financing should be monitored through strict mechanisms. The lack of confidence was also reflected by statements by UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash in which he said that the crisis with Qatar lies in a lack of confidence.
8- Leaks. The four countries of the boycott accused Qatar of pushing the crisis towards further escalation and rendering Kuwait’s initiative for mediation. Within this context, UAE Foreign Minister Gargash said, on June 23, that the demands that were leaked by “brothers” (the Qataris) do show how deep the crisis has become due to the damage they wreaked through their policies. He was referring to the list of 13 demands sent by the four countries to Doha, via Kuwait, in a bid to find a solution to the crisis.
