Bahrain calls for freeze on Qatar’s GCC membership

DUBAI: Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa called for the freezing of Qatar’s Gulf Cooperation Council membership, escalating attempts by a Saudi-led coalition to deepen the isolation of the gas-rich country.

Bahrain will not attend the upcoming GCC summit if Qatar takes part, Sheikh Khalid said on Twitter. He criticised Qatar for refusing to comply with a list of 13 demands, including shutting down Al Jazeera television and scaling back ties with Iran. The next summit is set to take place in December in Kuwait.

Sheikh Khalid is the first senior official from the Saudi-led bloc, which also includes the UAE, to float the idea of suspending Qatar’s membership in the GCC, a loose political and economic alliance between six gasrich nations. It’s not clear, however, whether the three countries have enough support to do so, with Kuwait and Oman widely seen unlikely to follow suit. Resolutions on “substantive matters” require the unanimous approval of attending members, according to the GCC charter.