Qatar’s ultimatum deadline comes to a close

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1. Qatar could face further sanctions by Arab states as a deadline to accept a series of demands from its Gulf neighbours passes on Sunday night.
2. Qatari leaders have effectively rejected the 13 demands tabled 10 days ago by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain.
3. Qatar’s foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, said on Saturday that the demands to shut down al-Jazeera, close a Turkish military base and cut relations with Iran had been framed to be rejected.
4. The UAE foreign affairs minister, Anwar Gargash, has played down suggestions of a military intervention. “The alternative is not escalation but parting ways,” he said, suggesting forcing Qatar out of the six-member GCC is at present the most likely outcome.
5. The western-backed body was formed in 1981, in the wake of Iran’s Islamic revolution and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.