Qatar’s Attorney General Ali bin Fetais al-Marri on 9th July announced it was establishing a committee to pursue compensation claims potentially worth billions of dollars over the country’s “blockade” by Gulf States.
Compensation Claims Committee would deal with cases including major companies, such as Qatar Airways, and individual Qatari students who have been expelled from the countries where they were studying.
Qatar has said thousands of its citizens have been affected by the isolation measures in what has emerged as the worst diplomatic crisis to hit the Gulf in recent years.
On June 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt announced they had cut all ties with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting Islamist extremists.
On June 22, the four Arab states issued a 13-point list of demands, including downgrading ties with Iran and shutting down broadcaster Al-Jazeera, as a prerequisite to lift the sanctions.
The obvious question is whether the dazzling rise of the Gulf states could be followed by an equally dazzling fall. If that were to happen, the implications would be global.
Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. The Qatar Investment Authority holds large stakes in important western companies such as Volkswagen and Barclays — and has also invested its petrobillions in trophy assets around the world, including the Shard, London’s tallest building, and Harrods department store. The Qataris are also due to host the football World Cup in 2022.
With an estimated $335bn of assets in its sovereign wealth fund, Qatar looks able to avoid an economic crisis over the decision
The UAE is Qatar's biggest trading partner from the GCC but only its fifth largest globally. Similarly, Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries traditionally account for only about 5 to 10 percent of trading on the Qatari stock market, according to exchange data, suggesting even a total pullout would not sink the market. Some foreign bankers said the whole region could end up paying more to borrow if diplomatic tensions persisted.
The reality is that the Saudis have long resented Qatar’s successful efforts to strut the international stage as an independent actor — something symbolised by the country’s sponsorship of Al Jazeera, which has provided a platform for the Muslim Brotherhood, a group detested by the Saudis. Saudi Arabia also believes Qatar has got far too close to Iran.
Qatar has reason to be thankful for the large US military presence in the country. Were it not for that, the Qataris would be much more vulnerable to a Saudi-led military intervention.