Qatar willing to talk about 13 demands, but will not allow violation of its sovereignty

Ever since the start of the illegal blockade of Qatar on June 5 by its neighbouring nations, the country has advocated the need for dialogue as a means of resolving the crisis.

However, the blockading nations first came up with a restrictive list of 13 demands and later climbed down to six broad principles Qatar had to follow before going back to their initial demand.

Kuwait’s Emir HH Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, after his meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, said Qatar was willing to look at the 13 demands as a means of negotiation, but was not going to accept any incursions into their sovereignty, reported Gulf Times.

The Kuwaiti Emir said he was hopeful many of the demands would be addressed as long as the solution did not infringe on Qatar’s independence.

“Though not all of the 13 demands made to Qatar have been deemed acceptable by Qatar’s government, the two side have to forget their differences. It isn’t in the interest of Qatar to remain outside the flock. It should rather join its brothers in the GCC,” he said.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, described what was said by the two leaders at the press conference as a "positive" development in the diplomatic crisis.

“The US president was quite restrained — he didn't use any inflammatory language and didn't escalate his declarations against any particular country,” Bishara said.

“The key thing is where Trump stands on this [GCC crisis]. Clearly, he didn't make single negative statement in this press conference, unlike previous conferences, which means he’s either restraining himself under pressure from the Kuwaitis, or he has actually been convinced otherwise that they all need to sit down and figure it out because, at the end of the day, this is a political problem that requires a political solution.”