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Tag Archives: Donald Trump
New York attorney general looking at Eric Trump charity’s payouts
By Ian Simpson
(Reuters) – New York’s attorney general is looking into a report that the Eric Trump Foundation funneled more than $1 million from charity golf tournaments into President Donald Trump’s business, a spokesman for the attorney general said on Friday.
Forbes magazine reported this week that the charity run by Eric Trump, the president’s second-oldest son, paid the Trump Organization to use its properties for charity events in recent years even though Eric Trump had told donors that the golf course and other assets were being used for free, so that just about all the money donated would help sick children.
Forbes reported that based on filings from the Eric Trump Foundation and other charities, more than $1.2 million “has no documented recipients past the Trump Organization.”
Eric Soufer, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, said in an email that his office was looking into issues raised by the Forbes story.
Soufer did not immediately respond to a later request for details about the examination.
The Democratic attorney general’s office already is investigating allegations of self-dealing at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, the Republican president’s charity.
Trump, a New York real estate developer, said in December that he would dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation, but Schneiderman’s office has said it could not be wound down while the investigation was ongoing.
Forbes also reported that although donors to the Eric Trump Foundation were told all its money was going to help St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, fight pediatric cancer, more than $500,000 was re-donated to other charities.
Many of those charities “were connected to Trump family members or interests, including at least four groups that subsequently paid to hold golf tournaments at Trump courses,” Forbes said.
Amanda Miller, who works for the Trump Organization and who identified herself in an emailed response to a Reuters query as a “spokesperson for Eric Trump,” said the Eric Trump Foundation would cooperate fully with Schneiderman’s office.
Eric Trump is executive vice president of development and acquisition for the Trump Organization.
“During the past decade, the Eric Trump Foundation has raised over $16.3 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, including more than $3.6 million to St. Jude and other worthwhile causes just in 2016 alone,” Miller said in the email.
Eric Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that he had raised the money for St. Jude with an expense ratio of less than 12.3 percent. “Let’s not politicize pediatric cancer,” he said.
On his foundation’s website, Eric Trump said he had ceased direct fundraising efforts at the end of 2016 “in order to avoid the appearance or assertion of any impropriety and/or a conflict of interest.”
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Saudi and Bahrain welcome Trump’s scolding of Qatar
RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia and Bahrain welcomed on Saturday U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand for Qatar to stop supporting terrorism, but did not respond to a U.S. Department of State call for them to ease pressure on the Gulf state.
After severing ties with Qatar on Monday, Saudi Arabia said it was committed to “decisive and swift action to cut off all funding sources for terrorism” in a statement carried by state news agency SPA, attributed to “an official source”.
And in a separate statement issued on Friday, the United Arab Emirates praised Trump’s “leadership in challenging Qatar’s troubling support for extremism”.
Trump accused Qatar of being a “high level” funder of terrorism on Friday, even as the Pentagon and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson cautioned against the military, commercial and humanitarian effects of a blockade imposed by Arab states and others.
A separate SPA report on Saturday acknowledged Tillerson’s call for Qatar to curtail support for terrorism, but did not mention his remarks that the crisis was hurting ordinary Qataris, impairing business dealings and harming the U.S. fight against the Islamic State militant group.
Saudi Arabia said its action followed the conclusions of last month’s Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, where Trump delivered a speech about Islamic extremism.
Trump said he helped plan the move against Qatar, although a senior administration official told Reuters earlier this week that the U.S. had no indication from the Saudis or Emiratis during the visit that they would sever ties with Qatar.
(Reporting by Katie Paul; editing by Alexander Smith)
Exclusive: Trump targets illegal immigrants who were given reprieves from deportation by Obama
By Mica Rosenberg and Reade Levinson
(Reuters) – In September 2014, Gilberto Velasquez, a 38-year-old house painter from El Salvador, received life-changing news: The U.S. government had decided to shelve its deportation action against him.
The move was part of a policy change initiated by then-President Barack Obama in 2011 to pull back from deporting immigrants who had formed deep ties in the United States and whom the government considered no threat to public safety. Instead, the administration would prioritize illegal immigrants who had committed serious crimes.
Last month, things changed again for the painter, who has lived in the United States illegally since 2005 and has a U.S.-born child. He received news that the government wanted to put his deportation case back on the court calendar, citing another shift in priorities, this time by President Donald Trump.
The Trump administration has moved to reopen the cases of hundreds of illegal immigrants who, like Velasquez, had been given a reprieve from deportation, according to government data and court documents reviewed by Reuters and interviews with immigration lawyers.
Trump signaled in January that he planned to dramatically widen the net of illegal immigrants targeted for deportation, but his administration has not publicized its efforts to reopen immigration cases.
It represents one of the first concrete examples of the crackdown promised by Trump and is likely to stir fears among tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who thought they were safe from deportation.
While cases were reopened during the Obama administration as well, it was generally only if an immigrant had committed a serious crime, immigration attorneys say. The Trump administration has sharply increased the number of cases it is asking the courts to reopen, and its targets appear to include at least some people who have not committed any crimes since their cases were closed.
Between March 1 and May 31, prosecutors moved to reopen 1,329 cases, according to a Reuters’ analysis of data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR. The Obama administration filed 430 similar motions during the same period in 2016. (For a graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2s8csUZ)
Jennifer Elzea, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed the agency was now filing motions with immigration courts to reopen cases where illegal immigrants had “since been arrested for or convicted of a crime.”
It is not possible to tell from the EOIR data how many of the cases the Trump administration is seeking to reopen involve immigrants who committed crimes after their cases were closed.
Attorneys interviewed by Reuters say indeed some of the cases being reopened are because immigrants were arrested for serious crimes, but they are also seeing cases involving people who haven’t committed crimes or who were cited for minor violations, like traffic tickets.
“This is a sea change, said attorney David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Before, if someone did something after the case was closed out that showed that person was a threat, then it would be reopened. Now they are opening cases just because they want to deport people.”
Elzea said the agency reviews cases, “to see if the basis for prosecutorial discretion is still appropriate.”
POLICY SHIFTS
After Obama announced his shift toward targeting illegal immigrants who had committed serious crimes, prosecutors embraced their new discretion to close cases.
Between January 2012 and Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the government shelved some 81,000 cases, according to Reuters’ data analysis. These so-called “administrative closures” did not extend full legal status to those whose cases were closed, but they did remove the threat of imminent deportation.
Trump signed an executive order overturning the Obama-era policy on Jan. 25. Under the new guidelines, while criminals remain the highest priority for deportation, anyone in the country illegally is a potential target.
In cases reviewed by Reuters, the administration explicitly cited Trump’s executive order in 30 separate motions as a reason to put the immigrant back on the court docket. (For a link to an excerpted document: http://tmsnrt.rs/2sI6aby)
Since immigration cases aren’t generally public, Reuters was able to review only cases made available by attorneys.
In the 32 reopened cases examined by Reuters:
–22 involved immigrants who, according to their attorneys, had not been in trouble with the law since their cases were closed.
–Two of the cases involved serious crimes committed after their cases were closed: domestic violence and driving under the influence.
–At least six of the cases involved minor infractions, including speeding after having unpaid traffic tickets, or driving without a valid license, according to the attorneys.
In Velasquez’s case, for example, he was cited for driving without a license in Tennessee, where illegal immigrants cannot get licenses, he said.
“I respect the law and just dedicate myself to my work,” he said. “I don’t understand why this is happening.”
Motions to reopen closed cases have been filed in 32 states, with the highest numbers in California, Florida and Virginia, according to Reuters’ review of EOIR data. The bulk of the examples reviewed by Reuters were two dozen motions sent over the span of a couple days by the New Orleans ICE office.
PUMPKIN SEED ARREST
Sally Joyner, an immigration attorney in Memphis, Tennessee said one of her Central American clients, who crossed the border with her children in 2013, was allowed to stay in the United States after the government filed a motion to close her case in December 2015.
Since crossing the border, the woman has not been arrested or had trouble with law enforcement, said Joyner, who asked that her client’s name not be used because of the pending legal action.
Nevertheless, on March 29, ICE filed a two-page motion to reopen the case against the woman and her children. When Joyner queried ICE, an official said the agency had been notified that her client had a criminal history in El Salvador, according to documents seen by Reuters.
The woman had been arrested for selling pumpkin seeds as an unauthorized street vendor. Government documents show U.S. authorities knew about the arrest before her case was closed.
Dana Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said that revisiting previously closed matters will add to a record backlog of 580,000 pending immigration cases.
“If we have to go back and review all of those decisions that were already made, it clearly generates more work,” she said. “It’s a judicial do-over.”
(This version of the story was refiled to change “of” to “for” in Executive Office for Immigration Review in paragraph 8)
(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Reade Levinson in New York; Additional reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington; Editing by Sue Horton and Ross Colvin)
Feud over Qatar deepens conflicts across Arab world
By Noah Browning and Aidan Lewis
DUBAI/TUNIS (Reuters) – The ostracism of Qatar by other powerful Arab states is deepening divisions between their respective allies vying for influence in wars and political struggles from Libya to Yemen.
The feud complicates efforts to stabilize countries reeling from years of turmoil and undermines the notion of a Sunni Muslim Arab world united against terrorism and Iran, proclaimed by U.S. President Donald Trump in his visit last month.
The quarrel is the latest chapter in the battle of wills between political Islamists and traditional Arab autocrats which has buffeted Muslim societies for decades.
Since the 2011 “Arab Spring” protests, which aspired to democratic reform but in several countries collapsed into warfare, Egypt and especially the United Arab Emirates emerged as main foes of an ascendant Muslim Brotherhood backed by Qatar.
After Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE cut ties to Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting militants and Iran, regional allies followed suit and denounced domestic foes as Qatari stooges, undermining reconciliation efforts by foreign powers.
“The whole situation has become very awkward. Qatar and its big rivals are fighting each other, but indirectly and on other people’s territory,” said Yemeni analyst Farea al-Muslimi.
“Having internal Arab messes like this escalate and get more complicated makes it pretty clear that the Arab world is far away from solving other issues like Palestine or Iraq or even the relationship with Iran.”
In Libya, the UAE and Qatar, which both played key roles in backing rebels in the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, have emerged as rivals on the battlefield with conflicting interests and visions.
The UAE, along with Egypt, has backed anti-Islamist former army commander Khalifa Haftar, appointed by a government and parliament based in the east. Qatar and Turkey have supported rival Islamist-leaning factions in western Libya.
In Yemen — mired in conflict since Saudi Arabia launched an air war in 2015 against the Houthi movement that controls the capital — a southern Yemeni secessionist council armed by the UAE opposes the internationally recognized government because it includes the Qatar-backed Muslim Brotherhood.
The council and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government, despite years of Qatar ties, cut diplomatic relations with Doha.
The eastern-based Libyan government and parliament aligned with anti-Islamist Haftar did the same.
“We are certain that the concerned states in the Gulf and Egypt will put pressure so as to drastically shift Qatar’s outrageous policies,” Mohamed Dayri, the foreign minister of the eastern government, told Reuters.
On Friday Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain designated as terrorists five Libyans including Tripoli Grand Mufti Sadiq al-Ghariani, an influential figure for anti-Haftar militias in western Libya. They also listed the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB), a group that has tried to revive armed opposition to Haftar since last year.
TIME TO WITHDRAW?
Qatar has for years punched well above its weight in world affairs by parleying its vast gas wealth into influence across the region, irking the UAE and dominant Gulf Arab power Saudi Arabia with its maverick stances and support for Islamists.
Now, Qatar’s powerful neighbors appear to be demanding a retreat from those conflicts.
“The message now is that it’s time for Qatar to withdraw from the region and essentially not have an independent foreign policy,” said Peter Salisbury, an analyst at Chatham House.
“It looks like Saudi Arabia and the UAE won’t be satisfied until Qatar is pushed to stop funding the groups they don’t like, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.”
But these demands come while Qatar’s allies have for the most part been forced onto the back foot.
Blessed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, former Egyptian army chief and now president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted the Qatar-aligned elected Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in a 2013 military takeover.
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, some of its leaders based in Doha, is no closer to leading the Palestinian people then when it fell out with secular rivals in the Fatah party in 2007.
The Gulf spat is likely to further fuel inter-rebel conflicts in Syria, where rivalries between Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been showcased since the earliest days of the crisis.
“EXTREMIST DIVIDENDS”
Qatar’s friends who retain a plausible chance at national leadership, in Libya and Yemen, may have the most to lose from the row.
Haftar styles himself as a bane of extremism, and has become the dominant figure in eastern Libya since launching a campaign against Islamist groups and former rebels in Benghazi three years ago. Many suspect he seeks national rule.
His supporters believe the Qatar spat vindicates their anti-Islamist stance, as Haftar has gained ground and the U.N.-backed Tripoli government that he has rejected has been floundering.
Any hardening of the Haftar camp’s stance could complicate mediation efforts by Libya’s neighbors to the west, Algeria and Tunisia, which have been pushing for an inclusive, negotiated solution.
“Qatar being made an example out of … means that Haftar, Egypt and the UAE will experience much less diplomatic pushback as they ramp up their military campaign inside Libya itself,” said Jalel Harchaoui, a researcher at Paris 8 University.
(Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
The Rise of the Antichrist Spirit (Day 3)
Pastor Jim and Lori discuss the rising corruption within society today that is the antichrist spirit. With special guest Joel Richardson.
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Comey says Trump fired him to undermine FBI Russia investigation
By Patricia Zengerle and Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former FBI director James Comey on Thursday accused President Donald Trump on Thursday of firing him to try to undermine the bureau’s investigation into possible collusion between his 2016 presidential campaign team and Russia.
Trump dismissed Comey on May 9 and the administration gave differing reasons for the action. Trump later contradicted his own staff and acknowledged on May 11 that he fired Comey because of the Russia probe.
Asked at a U.S. congressional hearing why he was fired, Comey said he did not know for sure. But he added: “Again, I take the president’s words. I know I was fired because of something about the way I was conducting the Russia investigation was in some way putting pressure on him, in some way irritating him, and he decided to fire me because of that.”
Comey earlier told the Senate Intelligence Committee in the most eagerly anticipated U.S. congressional hearing in years that he believed Trump had directed him to drop an FBI probe into the Republican president’s former national security adviser as part of the Russia investigation.
But Comey would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice.
“I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning,” Comey told the committee.
Trump critics say that any efforts by the president to hinder an FBI probe could amount to obstruction of justice. Such an offense potentially could lead to Trump being impeached by Congress, although the Republicans who control the Senate and House of Representatives have shown little appetite to make such a move against him.
Dressed in a dark suit and giving short, deliberative answers, Comey painted a picture of an overbearing president who pressured him to stop the FBI looking into Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
In more than two hours of testimony, Comey did not make any mayor new revelations about alleged links between Trump or his associates and Russia, an issue that has dogged Trump’s first months in office and distracted from his policy goals such as overhauling the U.S. healthcare system and making tax cuts.
Trump, in a speech across town, told supporters their movement was “under siege” and vowed to fight on.
“We’re under siege … but we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever,” he said. “We will not back down from doing what is right.”
“We know how to fight and we will never give up,” the president added.
U.S. stocks were higher in early afternoon trading on Thursday after investors concluded Comey’s testimony would not in itself bring down Trump’s presidency.
(Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe in New York, Doina Chiacu, Eric Walsh, Roberta Rampton and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Will Dunham)
Wall St. rises as Comey testimony springs no surprise
By Tanya Agrawal
(Reuters) – U.S. stocks were higher in early afternoon trading on Thursday after former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony was seen by investors as having no smoking gun that could affect Donald Trump’s presidency.
Comey, who was investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, said he had no doubt that Russia interfered with the election, but was confident that no votes had been altered.
Comey said he was disturbed by Trump’s bid to get him to drop a probe into former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, but would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice.
Investors were concerned that any major revelation by Comey could dampen already flagging momentum for Trump’s agenda of lower taxes and lax regulations.
Bets that Trump can implement his agenda are partly behind a rally that has taken stock indexes to record highs.
“I think the market is taking less of an alarmist review of this situation because there is no smoking gun here. So it’s not particularly impactful for thinking about … Trump’s economic agenda to go through,” said Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies & Co in New York.
Earlier on Thursday, the European Central Bank signaled no further interest rate cuts as euro zone prospects improved, but said subdued inflation meant it would continue to pump more stimulus into the region’s economy.
Investors are also awaiting the results of the UK general election. Opinion polls show Theresa May’s Conservative Party leading between 5 and 12 percentage points over the main opposition Labour Party, suggesting she would increase her majority.
“The market cares because if Theresa May loses the majority that would be disruptive of the Brexit process,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities in New York.
“Getting back into something that seemed to be a fair and orderly process into something that’s going to be more disruptive would not be a market positive.”
At 12:36 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> was up 68.55 points, or 0.32 percent, at 21,242.24 and the S&P 500 <.SPX> was up 4.06 points, or 0.16 percent, at 2,437.2.
The Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> was up 14.46 points, or 0.23 percent, at 6,311.84.
Six of the 11 major S&P sectors were lower, with the defensive utilities index’s <.SPLRCU> 1.04 percent loss topping the decliners.
Financials <SPSY> rose 1.59 percent leading the gainers.
Shares of Alibaba Group Holding <BABA.N> were up 11.3 percent at $139.78 after the company said it expected revenue growth of 45-49 percent in the 2018 fiscal year.
Yahoo <YHOO.O>, which owns a 15.5 percent stake in Alibaba, rose 8.3 percent.
Nordstrom <JWN.N> jumped 10.6 percent to $44.78 after the department store operator said that some members of the controlling Nordstrom family have formed a group to consider taking the company private.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,624 to 1,188. On the Nasdaq, 1,832 issues rose and 926 fell.
(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Sinead Carew and Dion Rabouin; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Savio D’Souza)
Comey’s caution to meet Trump’s tweets in Russia hearing
By Warren Strobel and Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former FBI Director James Comey will tell Congress on Thursday that President Donald Trump pressed him repeatedly to halt a probe into his ex-national security adviser’s ties with Russia and to declare publicly that Trump himself was not under investigation.
Comey’s testimony in the most widely anticipated congressional hearing in years will put at center stage a high-stakes clash between two men with vastly different personas.
The outcome could have significant repercussions for Trump’s 139-day-old presidency as special counsel Robert Mueller and multiple congressional committees investigate whether Trump’s campaign team colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. The White House and Russia deny any collusion occurred.
In written testimony released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, Comey quoted Trump as telling him the Russia investigation was a “cloud” impairing his ability to operate as president.
Comey said in his statement that in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office on Feb.14, Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn that is part of a wider probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey quoted Trump as saying.
Comey also said Trump told him during a one-on-one dinner on Jan. 27 that he needed “loyalty.”
Trump fired the FBI chief on May 9, setting off a political firestorm, and he has since called Comey a “showboat” and a “grandstander.”
Democrats, along with some Republicans, on the committee will use the hearing on Thursday to press for further details of any attempts by Trump to blunt the Russia investigation.
“I’m very concerned about the implication that Comey keeping his job was dependent on his loyalty or, in Comey’s words, developing a ‘patronage relationship.’ That is another way the President sought to impede the investigation,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in a comment emailed to Reuters.
Senator Susan Collins, a Republican member of the panel, said earlier this week: “I want to know more also about the president’s interactions with Mr. Comey with regard to the investigation into Michael Flynn. … It makes a big difference what the exact words were, the tone of the president, the context of the conversation.”
But Republican Senator Richard Burr, the panel’s chairman, sought to downplay Comey’s “loyalty” remark, saying: “I don’t think it’s wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration.”
Trump’s attorney, Marc Kasowitz, released a statement on Wednesday saying the president felt “totally vindicated” by Comey’s acknowledgement that he had told Trump on three occasions that he was not personally under investigation.
Despite landing himself in other political controversies, including his handling of the FBI investigation of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server, Comey is widely seen as cautious and fact-oriented.
“One thing you don’t ever hear about him is (that) people don’t think he tells the truth. He brings a lot of credibility,” said Benjamin Wittes, a Comey confidant and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Less than five months into office, Trump has proven himself to be impulsive and visceral, turning to Twitter to lambaste perceived adversaries in 140 characters or less.
AWKWARD RELATIONSHIP
As Comey’s written testimony underscored, he and the U.S. president had an awkward, topsy-turvy relationship.
Then-candidate Trump excoriated Comey last summer for deciding not to prosecute Clinton over her handling of government emails, then praised him when he reopened the issue in October just days before the election.
Trump initially kept Comey on as FBI director, and publicly embraced him at a January White House event. Two days after firing him, Trump said it was because of “this Russia thing.”
Trump is widely expected to use his Twitter account, which lists 31.8 million followers, to counterpunch at Comey on Thursday – perhaps even in real time.
The Republican president’s unconstrained use of Twitter has confounded allies and skeptics alike.
“Every time you tweet, it makes it harder on all of us who are trying to help you. I don’t think you did anything wrong. Don’t get in the way of an investigation that could actually clear you,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News on Wednesday.
Despite the high drama, Comey is not expected to drop any major new bombshells, or directly accuse Trump of trying to obstruct justice by asking him to halt the FBI probe of Flynn.
He is also unlikely to reveal new details of the ongoing Russia investigation. U.S. law enforcement officials said Comey had discussed his testimony with Mueller’s investigative team to ensure it did not interfere with the special counsel’s probe.
“The one thing you know he’s not going to do, you know he’s not going to reach a conclusion (on the legality of Trump’s actions) and he’s not going to talk about the underlying investigation,” said Stephen Ryan, a former federal prosecutor and congressional investigator now at the McDermott, Will & Emery law firm.
Still, Ryan said the testimony, and senators’ questions, would be historic. The closest comparison, he said, was the appearance 44 years ago of President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel John Dean, who, after being fired by Nixon, gave damning testimony in 1973 to the Senate Watergate Committee.
(Additional reporting by John Walcott; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Peter Cooney)
Gulf states squeeze Qatar as U.S., Kuwait probe for solution to row
By Tom Finn
DOHA (Reuters) – Gulf states cranked up the pressure on Qatar on Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump and Kuwait’s emir worked to end an Arab row that Qataris say has led to a blockade of their country, an investment powerhouse and supplier of gas to world markets.
With Trump offering to help resolve the crisis, possibly with a meeting at the White House, the United Arab Emirates cut postal links to Qatar, and close Saudi ally Bahrain reiterated a demand that Doha distance itself from regional foe Iran.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and several other countries severed diplomatic and transport ties with Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their arch-foe Iran – charges Qatar says are baseless.
Normally guarded about politics, Qataris expressed outrage.
“It is a blockade! Like that of Berlin. A declaration of war. A political, economic and social aggression,” a Qatari diplomat said. “We need the world to condemn the aggressors.”
With food and other supplies disrupted and worries mounting about deepening economic turbulence, banks and firms in Gulf Arab states were seeking to keep business links to Qatar open and avoid a costly firesale of assets.
Turkey has brought forward a troop deployment to Qatar and pledged to provide food and water supplies to its Arab ally, which hosts a Turkish military base. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said isolating Qatar would not resolve any problems.
The UAE’s national postal service, Emirates Post Group, suspended all postal services to Qatar, state news agency WAM said, the latest in a series of measures degrading commercial and communications links with Doha.
The Abu Dhabi Petroleum Ports Authority also reimposed a ban on oil tankers linked to Qatar calling at ports in the UAE, reversing an earlier decision to ease restrictions, and potentially creating a logjam of crude cargoes.
Trump initially took sides with the Saudi-led group before apparently being nudged into a more even-handed approach when U.S. defense officials renewed praise of Doha, mindful of the major U.S. military base hosted by Qatar that serves, in part, as a launchpad for strikes on Islamic State jihadists.
In his second intervention in the dispute in as many days, Trump urged action against terrorism in a call with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, a White House statement said, suggesting a meeting at the White House “if necessary”.
It said that Trump, in a later call with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, called for unity among Gulf Arabs “but never at the expense of eliminating funding for radical extremism or defeating terrorism”.
Officials from Qatar and its Gulf Arab neighbors embarked on a quickening round of shuttle diplomacy, with the Qatari foreign minister due in Moscow and Brussels and Bahrain’s king visiting his ally Egypt for talks on the crisis.
SAUDIS SAY OUTSIDE MEDIATION UNWANTED
Qatar called for “dialogue and diplomacy”.
The Qatari ambassador to Washington, Meshal Hamad al-Thani, wrote on Twitter that a key pillar of Doha’s foreign policy was mediation. “Open channels of communication means venues for conflict resolution,” he said.
But Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Gulf states could resolve the dispute among themselves without outside help.
“We have not asked for mediation, we believe this issue can be dealt with among the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),” he told a news conference with his German counterpart during a visit to Berlin broadcast on Saudi state television.
The foreign minister of Oman met fellow GCC member Kuwait’s emir for talks. The Kuwaiti leader went to the UAE and Qatar on Wednesday for talks on the crisis and is now back in Kuwait.
In the meantime, Qatar’s neighbors kept up a drumbeat of criticism and warnings.
In an interview with BBC radio, UAE Ambassador to Russia Omar Saif Ghobash said Qatar had to choose between supporting extremism or supporting its neighbors.
“We have all kinds of recordings taking place where they (Qatar) are coordinating with al Qaeda in Syria,” he said.
“Qatar needs to decide: Do you want to be in the pocket of Turkey, Iran and Islamic extremists? They need to make a decision; they can’t have it both ways.
The Saudi newspaper al Watan published what it called a list of eight “extremist organizations” seen as working to destabilize the region from Qatar, including Qatar’s al Jazeera news channel, that were targeted by Gulf Arab states.
Qatar has backed Islamist movements but vehemently denies supporting terrorism. It provides a haven to anti-Western groups such as the Afghan Taliban, Palestinian Hamas and Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front. Qatar says it does not accept its neighbors’ view that any group with an Islamist background is terrorist. Qatar’s emir has said such a view is a big mistake.
In an interview published by Saudi-owned Asharq al Awsat newspaper, Bahraini Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said conditions posed by the four countries for a resolution of the crisis were “crystal clear”.
“NUMBER ONE ENEMY IRAN”
“Qatar has to redress its path and has to go back to all previous commitments, it has to stop media campaigns and has to distance itself from our number one enemy Iran.”
Jubeir declined to confirm a list of 10 demands published by Al Jazeera, which included shutting down the widely watched, Doha-based satellite network. But he added that Qatar knew what it needed to do to restore normal relations.
Turkey’s Erdogan called Kuwait’s ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, late on Wednesday and discussed developments in the Gulf and ways to cement cooperation between Muslim countries, the Kuwaiti state news agency KUNA said. Turkey, like Kuwait, has offered to mediate.
In a sign of the economic damage from the dispute, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Qatar’s debt on Wednesday as the country’s riyal currency fell to an 11-year low amid signs that portfolio investment funds were flowing out because of the rift.
UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told Reuters more economic curbs would be imposed on Qatar if necessary and said Doha needed to make ironclad commitments to change what critics call a policy on funding Islamist militants.
He later told France 24 television that any further steps could take the form of “a sort of embargo on Qatar”.
In a measure that cemented earlier UAE restrictions on air transport, the country’s General Civil Aviation Authority said it had closed the air space for all air traffic to and from Doha until further notice.
Regional tensions have been aggravated by the worst dispute among Gulf Arabs for two decades and were ratcheted up further on Wednesday after militants attacked targets in Tehran, killing at least 12 people.
Shi’ite Muslim Iran blamed Sunni Muslim arch-rival Saudi Arabia for the attack, which was claimed by the Sunni Islamic State. Riyadh denied any involvement.
(Additional reporting by Reem Shamseddine, Aziz El Yaakoubi, Sylvia Westall, Sami Aboudi and Andrew Torchia, Writing by William Maclean, Editing by Mark Heinrich)