Bahrain: Not to reinstate ambassador to Qatar soon

Bahrain’s foreign minister ruled out the reinstatement of the kingdom’s ambassador to Qatar soon. "The return of the Bahraini ambassador to Doha is not on the cards right now," Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa said on Sunday, Al Bawaba reported. "The committees made up of members from all the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council countries are still working on removing the pending differences," the minister said, quoted by Bahrain News Agency (BNA). Shaikh Khalid was speaking as he attended an international conference held in the Bahrain capital Manama on the establishment of the Arab Court for Human Rights. "The committees are still working and we should not anticipate events. We should wait for the outcome," he said. "We need to work together to iron out all differences. There are steady meetings at the ministerial levels and we had such a meeting yesterday. We do remain optimistic," he said. In April, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took the unprecedented step within the PGCC to recall their ambassadors from Qatar, accusing it of meddling in their internal affairs and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement banned in some PGCC countries. The PGCC, set up in 1981, groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Neither Kuwait nor Oman recalled its ambassadors from Qatar. Manama, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi said they would not re-send their ambassadors until an agreement that would put an end to the perceived meddling and support to groups hostile to PGCC countries was reached with Doha. In a landmark agreement, Qatar said that it accepted a deal with fellow PGCC countries and pledged to implement the agreement. Ad hoc committees have been since then holding meetings in the Saudi capital Riyadh to assess the situation. On Saturday, the PGCC foreign ministers held a meeting in Saudi Arabia and discussed reports by the committees. A communiqué said that the ministers agreed to continue the measures adopted earlier to implement the Riyadh agreement.