- Joined
- Sep 20, 2016
As Saudi Arabia considers digging a moat along its border with Qatar and dumping nuclear waste nearby, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh on his first overseas trip as the nation’s top diplomat with a simple message: Enough is enough.
Patience with what is viewed in Washington as a petulant spat within the Gulf Cooperation Council has worn thin, and Pompeo told the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, that the dispute needs to end, according to a senior State Department official who briefed reporters on the meetings but who was not authorized to be named.
Pompeo is closer to Trump and thus a more formidable figure. And in the nearly 11 months since the embargo began, Qatar has spent millions of dollars on a Washington charm offensive that paid off this month when its leader, Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, had an Oval Office meeting with Trump during which the president expressed strong support for the tiny country.
So Pompeo came here to deliver the same message to al-Jubeir at an airport meeting Saturday afternoon; to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman later that night; and to King Salman in a meeting planned for Sunday: Stop.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/mike-pompeo-tells-saudis-enough-is-enough-stop-qatar-blockade-and-help-heal-yemen/articleshow/63961481.cms
Patience with what is viewed in Washington as a petulant spat within the Gulf Cooperation Council has worn thin, and Pompeo told the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, that the dispute needs to end, according to a senior State Department official who briefed reporters on the meetings but who was not authorized to be named.
Pompeo is closer to Trump and thus a more formidable figure. And in the nearly 11 months since the embargo began, Qatar has spent millions of dollars on a Washington charm offensive that paid off this month when its leader, Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, had an Oval Office meeting with Trump during which the president expressed strong support for the tiny country.
So Pompeo came here to deliver the same message to al-Jubeir at an airport meeting Saturday afternoon; to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman later that night; and to King Salman in a meeting planned for Sunday: Stop.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/mike-pompeo-tells-saudis-enough-is-enough-stop-qatar-blockade-and-help-heal-yemen/articleshow/63961481.cms