German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel called for a serious dialogue to end the crisis in relations between Qatar and the Arab states, Daily Mail reported.
“Since many weeks, the brotherly countries and neighbours of the Arabian peninsula have been locked in a conflict that has fuelled concern,” Gabriel said ahead of his tour of several Arab states: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
According to him, Berlin is worried that the distrust and the disunity could weaken all the parties concerned as well as the entire peninsula.
Gabriel called for a “serious dialogue between the parties” to resolve the crisis, adding that while Berlin was “not taking sides, the conflict… affects both us and our interests.”
He noted that this concerns not only the fight against IS, and also stability in the region.
Earlier that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE had announced that they broke diplomatic ties with Qatar, condemning Doha of supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing the situation in the Middle East.
Later, the authorities of Libya, Yemen, Maldives, Mauritius, Mauritania, and The Comoros also informed that they were severing relations with Qatar.
Recently Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain have sent Doha a list of 13 demands, including closing Al Jazeera television, reducing ties to their regional adversary Iran and closing of a Turkish military base in Qatar. But it was agreed to extend the deadline given to Qatar for response to a list of demands for another 48 hours.