Alwaght- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has lobbied to sack US secretary of state Rex Tillerson for failing to help the Persian Gulf Arab state in its struggle against its regional rival Qatar.
Leaked emails obtained by the BBC on Monday found Elliot Broidy, a businessman with links to the United Arab Emirates and a major Donald Trump fundraiser, wanted Tillerson fired for not supporting the UAE-backed blockade against Qatar.
According to the BBC article, the emails are an account of what Elliot Broidy told the US president during a meeting in October.
Broidy said in the emails that Tillerson was "performing poorly and should be fired at a politically convenient time".
Saudi Arabia along with its allies the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar in early June last year and imposed a blockade on the Persian Gulf Arab kingdom for what they called Doha’s pro-terrorist policies and supporting Iranian policies in the region.
The anti-Qatari move included an all-out sea, air, and ground embargo, and Riyadh did its best to provoke an international anti-Doha condemnation wave, but it failed, as only a couple of countries joined Saudi Arabia in its ban on its neighbor.
Rex Tillerson has also rebuked the embargo of Qatar, saying it was "impairing US and other international business activities in the region".
Trump fundraiser, according to the leaked emails, also said Qatar was "a television station with a country," referring to the broadcast network Al Jazeera. He added that the network has done "nothing positive".
Al Jazeera has routinely aired critical coverage of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, most recently of their aggression against neighboring Yemeni nation that has claimed lives of more than 14,000 civilians.
Broidy sent the emails to George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman who operates as an adviser to the UAE’s military chief, Mohammed bin Zayed.
Both Broidy and Nader are people of interest in Robert Mueller’s probe into whether Trump illegally collaborated with foreign countries during the presidential campaign, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
"Mueller's investigators have questioned Nader and have pressed witnesses for information about any possible attempts by the Emiratis to buy political influence by directing money to support Trump during the presidential campaign, according to people with knowledge of the discussions," the paper reported.
In a rebuttal to the leak, a spokesperson for Broidy’s defence company, Circinus, told the BBC that Qatar hacked his emails and that they "may have been altered".
"We have reason to believe this hack was sponsored and carried out by registered and unregistered agents of Qatar seeking to punish Mr Broidy for his strong opposition to state-sponsored terrorism," the spokesperson said.
Qatar has denied these claims.
"Qatar would like to state unequivocally that it has not engaged in or committed any of the alleged accusations made falsely by Mr Broidy, nor has it engaged or paid anyone to do so," the country’s communications office told the BBC.
