Bahrain Mirror: Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani missed the 40th Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Emir's absence came after a failure to reach a solution to the ongoing Gulf crisis, which has been ongoing since early June 2017, when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt announced severing ties with Qatar.

Few days ago, Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin AbdulRahman Al-Thani announced a progress in the talks between Qatar and the three blockade countries. Meanwhile, Gulf media expected that the Emir of Qatar would attend the GCC summit.

Qatar was represented by Prime Minister and Interior Minister Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who was warmly welcomed in Riyadh by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Saudi officials, AFP reported, in an indication of continued work to resolve the Gulf crisis.

It was remarkable that the Qatari Prime Minister did not address the Gulf crisis during his speech at the GCC summit, in another indication of calmness between the two parties with the possibility of reaching a solution soon.

However, the three besieging countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE) later expressed, through their foreign ministers, regret over lack of seriousness of the Qatari side in resolving the crisis, in a sign of cessation of talks between the two sides and continuation of the Gulf dispute apparently. Meanwhile, there has been no official comment from Doha.

Arabic Version