now the long-running dispute between
qatar and its gulf neighbors appears to
be at an
end after the signing of a document by
leaders at a meeting of the gulf
cooperation council in saudi arabia
the emir of qatar embraced the saudi
crown prince mohammed bin salman as he
arrived in saudi arabia for a summit
aimed at resolving the rift it's the
first time that sheikh tamim bin hamad
al-thani has taken part in a gcc summit
since
saudi arabia the uae and bahrain imposed
an
embargo on his country in 2017 over
accusations
of supporting terrorism which qatar has
denied our middle east business
correspondent samir hashmi
is watching the developments now this is
the
41st gcc summit but clearly one of the
most significant ones in recent years
and that was
quite evident when sheikh al-thani was
embraced by
crown prince mohammed bin salman the de
facto head
of saudi arabia when he arrived in ula
to attend
the gcc summit and the pictures are
quite
significant also given the bitter
rivalry between saudi arabia and qatar
over the last three and a half years now
this deal has not happened overnight
both the sides have been talking to each
other for more than a year now
the trump administration was involved
but so were the kuwaitis who have played
a key role
and they were encouraged by the united
states government
to make sure that this deal works out of
course over the last few months jared
kushner
the senior advisor in the white house
also
uh was involved to make sure that this
deal does go through
now why does this deal happen right now
of course a lot of credit has been given
to the trump administration but the
other important factor is that the
saudis
wanted to demonstrate to joe biden who
won the election in november
that his government the saudi regime
rather
is willing to negotiate because most
analysts expect that the joe biden
administration will
adopt a much tougher stance against the
saudis compared
to the trump administration and by
striking this deal
the saudis wanted to show the biden
administration that they are not
holding on to their rigid position but
they are willing to negotiate wherever
it's possible but the other interesting
fact or
a factor to watch out for is that the
other three countries that were part
of this saudi alliance the unit the uae
egypt and bahrain are not very happy
with this deal of course publicly they
have welcomed it
but they were reluctant because of the
trust deficit between the both the sides
and uh the saudis have already announced
that they would be opening up the
borders but we still haven't heard
anything with regards to that from these
three countries so that's something to
watch out for
whether this deal will be only between
saudi arabia and qatar or with the other
three countries which is egypt the uae
and bahrain will also implement it in
its full spirit
samir hashmi reporting there