Saudi- Qatari reconciliation talks in Paris, under Kuwaiti patronage

Qatar announced it has held talks with Saudi Arabia in France yesterday that concentrated on solving the disputes in the relations between the two states.

Qatar's foreign minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jasem al-Thani told the Qatari al-Jazeera TV yesterday that the " meeting falls in the course of reactivating ties between the two countries and solving issues of differences, that can be solved thanks to our leaderships and their wisdoms." But he gave no mention to the subject of the talks.

Meantime, the Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas announced that the Kuwaiti prime minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah arranged the meeting in France between Saudi and Qatari officials " to supervise the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Qatar." The paper explained quoting a Kuwaiti ministerial source that the " the prime minister who was accompanied by the foreign minister Sheikh Muhammad al-Sabah and director of his office ambassador Ahmad al-Fahd is since one month making efforts to unify ranks of the Gulf states and to maintain a reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Qatar in France."

The paper added " the Saudi- Qatari meeting was made at a Kuwaiti patronage in a Yakht off Monte Carlo ( to the south of France) so as to be kept apart from the mass media." It indicated that the ruler of al-Riyadh Salman Bin Abdul Aziz attended the meeting for the Saudi side and the ruler of the state of Qatar sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa for the Qatari side.