Qatar urges European Union to take more efforts to end economic blockade imposed by Arab Quartet

Doha, February 7: Qatar on Tuesday urged European Union to take more efforts to end the economic blockade imposed by the Arab Quartet of Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Notably, it’s been over 8 months bit still Gulf crisis remains intensified. 

The chairman of the National Human Rights Committee Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri during his visit to France, one of the legs of his European tour said, "We call on the EU to join international human rights organizations to support efforts for an immediate end to the siege imposed on Qatar."

Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri further emphasized the neutral position that may lead to collusion and encourage continuing violations of human rights. Meanwhile, the Qatari senior official highlighted the official report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which condemned the violations against the Qatari people.

Earlier, in the month of January this year, the EU High Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini called on all parties to enter into negotiations during her visit to Kuwait.

Importantly, in the month of June last year, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and several other nations cut ties with Qatar and imposed stringent economic sanctions on it over supporting extremism. On the other side, Qatar denied all their allegations saying that they never supported Islamist militants and Shi'ite Iran.

Later, Saudi and its allies issued a 13-point list of demands to end the rift on June 22 and gave Qatar 10 days to comply. However, earlier Qatar rejected to fulfill the demands. The controversial Qatar World Cup will take place Nov. 21-Dec. 18 in 2022.