Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday backed Doha and dismissed calls to close Ankara’s military base in Qatar saying it was “disrespectful”, AP reported. He said he will not “seek permission” from other countries on the matters of defence. The Turkish military base in Qatar houses 90 soldiers.
Erdogan said he approved of the attitude adopted by Qatar against the list of 13 demands presented by several Arab nations. “This approach of 13 demands is against international law because you cannot attack or intervene in the sovereignty of a country,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters.
On June 5, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and other Arab countries had severed diplomatic relations with Qatar accusing it of backing militancy. Among their 13 demands, the countries have asked shutting down of Al Jazeera television, ending Turkey’s military presence in Qatar and limit relations with Iran.
Erdogan said Turkey had offered to establish a military base to the king of Saudi Arabia, however, the latter never replied to the proposal. “They did not come back to us since that day. Even though they still didn’t come back to us on this, asking Turkey to pull back its troops [from Qatar] is disrespectful against Turkey,” he said.
Doha on Saturday had said the demands were ‘unreasonable’.“This list of demands confirms what Qatar has said from the beginning – the illegal blockade has nothing to do with combating terrorism, it is about limiting Qatar’s sovereignty, and outsourcing our foreign policy,” Sheikh Saif al-Thani, the director of Qatar’s government communications office, had said.
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