Alwaght- Qatar Foreign Minister has said Doha will not provoke any country and seeks no military escalation with the United Arab Emirates following a renewed bout of verbal sparring between the two Persian Gulf states over alleged military overflights.
Earlier this month Qatar accused UAE military planes of repeatedly violating its airspace, while Bahrain and the UAE said Qatari warplanes had harassed two civilian Emirati airliners.
The two sides denied each other's accusations but have signaled they want to de-escalate the row, which comes at a time when relations between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors are very strained.
"Qatar will never provoke any country," Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said in an interview during the World Economic Forum in Davos, in which he also said the rift between Doha and its Persian Gulf neighbors was hampering regional security cooperation.
He said Qatar welcomed comments by a senior UAE military official this week that the military had received orders not to worsen the seven-month dispute with Doha.
"As far as we know, there is no intention about this military conflict. We have seen their announcement yesterday which we have welcomed. For us we don't see any solution other than resorting to dialogue," Sheikh Mohammed added.
Last summer, the four regimes, namely Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, abruptly severed ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorist groups in the region.
Qatar, vehemently rejected the allegations, describing attempts to isolate it by its fellow Arab states as a violation of international law.
On June 22, the Saudi-led block, issued a 13-point list of demands, including the shutdown of Al Jazeera TV, limiting ties with Iran, and expelling Turkish troops stationed in the country as a prerequisite to lifting the blockade.
Qatar rejected all the demands, denouncing them as attempts to violate its sovereignty.
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