On Wednesday, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi unveiled a raft of economic deals, signing 20 memorandums of understanding for over 60 joint projects, including in the oil and gas, banking, nuclear energy, and defense.
The deals, approved at a meeting of the Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, did not involve the four other Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members — Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
Vor allem Bau- und Infrastrukturmaßnahmen für die Fußball-WM 2022 in Qatar versprechen seit Jahren riesige Aufträge auch für deutsche Unternehmen wie Hochtief, Siemens, Deutsche Bahn, Albert Speer und Partner oder die Dorsch-Gruppe, die den Zuschlag für die Bauaufsicht über ein 45-Milliarden-Euro-Projekt erhielt.[6] Kurz vor der WM-Vergabe hatten der damalige Vorstandschef von Hochtief, Herbert Lütkestratkötter, und Kanzlerin Angela Merkel gemeinsam mit der qatarischen Führung getagt. Wenige Monate nach dem WM-Zuschlag für das Emirat reiste der Hamburger Reeder Erck Rickmers in Begleitung von Franz Beckenbauer nach Doha. Zuvor hatte Rickmers laut Spiegel online 250.000 US-Dollar an die Franz-Beckenbauer-Stiftung gespendet. Der Sunday Times zufolge war die Reise vom damaligen qatarischen FIFA-Delegierten Mohamed bin Hammam organisiert worden. Es sei, teilt die von Rickmers geleitete E.R. Capital Holding mit, „um die mögliche Zusammenarbeit der E.R. Gruppe mit katarischen Investment-Fonds und einer Beteiligungsmöglichkeit im Schifffahrtsbereich“ gegangen.[7]
Auch deutsche Politiker, darunter unter anderem Bundespräsident Christian Wulff, gaben sich in jener Zeit in Qatar fast die Klinke in die Hand. Qatar hatte – ganz unabhängig von der Fußball-WM – begonnen, Wirtschaft und Infrastruktur systematisch auszubauen, um perspetivisch seiner völlig einseitigen Abhängigkeit von Erdöl und Erdgas zu entkommen. Dazu diente, wie Jäger es schildert, unter anderem ein Großprogramm mit dem Titel „Qatar National Vision 2030“, das wiederum bei deutschen Unternehmen Interesse an teils milliardenschweren Aufträgen weckte. Konnte da nicht die Fußball-WM dem Emirat weitere Anreize und interessierten Firmen zusätzliche attraktive Aufträge bieten? Wie auch immer – die Pläne, mit denen Qatar sich erfolgreich um die WM-Vergabe bewarb, wurden in Frankfurt am Main entwickelt, vom Architektur- und Planungsbüro AS+P (Albert Speer und Partner), das wiederum neben deutschen Baukonzernen nach erfolgreicher Bewerbung von den nun anfallenden lukrativen Bauaufträgen profitierte. Die Frage, wer wem zu einer Fußball-WM verhilft, kann weitreichende Konsequenzen haben.
In the chaos that followed the overthrow of Gaddafi, Human Rights Watch staff made it to Libya and found a cache of documents left in the office of notorious intelligence chief, Musa Kusa, who had fled the country initially to the UK and then fled on to Qatar.
On May 1, the developers of the Signal encrypted messaging application revealed that over the previous month, Google and Amazon took steps to stop Signal from continuing to bypass censorship measures in place in Egypt, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Workers, youth, journalists, lawyers and human rights advocates will no longer be able to use the application to send encrypted messages and evade government surveillance.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is using the Middle East leg of his first trip abroad as America’s top diplomat to call for concerted international action to punish Iran for its missile programs. He’s also urging Saudi Arabia and its neighbors to resolve a long-festering dispute with Qatar that U.S. officials say Iran is exploiting to boost its influence in the region, including in Yemen and Syria.
Umm Qasr port is in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, said Tuesday that Saudi Arabia is engaged in talks with the US and would consider sending forces to Syria along with other Arab countries as part of this contingent.
Jubeir also noted that the idea is not necessarily new, as Saudi Arabia made a similar proposal to the Obama administration, but that the US did not take them up on the offer.
Already this devastating conflict has cost more than 500,000 lives and led to 5 million refugees being forced to flee Syria, and 6 million internally displaced. We must put negotiations for a political settlement centre stage, and not slip into a new cycle of military reaction and counter-reaction.
Protracted external military intervention in Syria – from funding and arms supplies to bombing and boots on the ground – has not helped in the slightest. Syria has become the theatre for military action by regional and international powers – the United States, Britain, Russia, France, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates among them.
AMIR AL THANI: I’m very happy and honored to be here, and thanks for this invitation. Our relationship between Qatar and the United States has been more than 45 years. It’s a very strong, solid relationship. Our economic partnership is more than $125 billion, and our aim and goal is to double it in the next coming years.
Our military cooperation is very solid, very strong. As everybody know, that the heart of fighting terrorism is from Al Udeid Base. And, thank God, it’s been a very successful campaign against the terrorist groups around our region.
Lately, before I come here, I was in Tampa. I visited the CENTCOM, and we met with the generals. And it was a very important visit, and it shows how strong our cooperation is between the armed forces.
Of course, we speak today and we see the suffering of the Syrian people. And me and the President, we see eye to eye that this matter has to stop immediately. We cannot tolerate — with a war criminal, we cannot tolerate with someone who killed more than half a million of his own people. And this matter should end immediately.
Thank you very much, Mr. President.
American officials expressed confidence that they would have the backing of France, which has been vocal about the need for a strong response, as well as Britain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, all of which called for Syria to be held accountable for the suspected chemical attack. It remained unclear, however, whether any of the allies would participate.
(8.3.2018) In remarks reportedly made this week in a meeting with Egyptian newspaper editors, he pointed to a “triangle of evil” in the Middle East made up of Iran — Riyadh’s perennial foe — Islamist extremist groups and Turkey. His rhetoric seemed to echo the notorious „axis of evil“ bluster of the George W. Bush administration.
The inclusion of Turkey raised eyebrows and sparked an angry backlash on Turkish social media.
The signing of a $4 billion partnership deal with Qatar last week to build and manage the Red Sea port of Suakin puts the country’s strategic location under spot and could be considered the first serious attempt to tap this resource that has been neglected for quite long time.
The Sudanese-Qatari joint venture that will take three years to materialize is envisioning spending $500 million in the first phase and then expand eventually so as to enable the new port handle the expected surge in volume of trade.
Russian President Vladimir Putin noted progress in Russian-Qatari relations as well as positive prospects for mutual trade at a meeting with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Monday