THERE will be no quick end to the row between Qatar and the four anti-terror quartet counties — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain — the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs wrote on his official Twitter account on Friday.

“We are headed for a long estrangement ... we are very far from a political solution involving a change in Qatar’s course, and in light of that nothing will change and we have to look for a different format of relations,” Anwar Al-Gargash said.

The statement suggested no breakthrough in the situation after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson left the Gulf on Thursday following a three-day tour of Gulf Arab countries aimed at easing the situation.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of supporting terrorism and regional arch-foe Iran.

During his Doha visit, Tillerson signed a US-Qatari accord on terrorism financing in an effort to help ease the crisis, but Qatar’s opponents said it fell short of allaying their concerns.

The State Department said on Thursday that Tillerson hoped the parties in the dispute could soon negotiate face-to-face.

“Based on his meetings, the secretary believes that getting the parties to talk directly to one another would be an important next step,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters.

“We hope the parties will agree to do so.”

A report from Ankara said President Tayyip Erdogan hopes to visit the Gulf soon to discuss efforts to resolve the crisis, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday.

“All our efforts are focused on a solution that suits the laws of brotherly relations,” Cavusoglu told reporters after talks in Ankara with his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s foreign minister has said it would be unfair to describe Tillerson’s shuttle diplomacy as a failure, insisting that the crisis “cannot be solved in a day.”

Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar would continue to work with the United States and Kuwait to end the standoff with its Arab neighbors.

Mosul ‘liberation’

from Daesh hailed

Saudi Arabia on Friday hailed the Iraq government’s recapture of Mosul city from Daesh (the so-called IS) militants, stressing its solidarity with Baghdad in combating “terrorism” despite their rocky relations.

The Kingdom “congratulates the Iraqi government and people for recapturing Mosul city and liberating it from the Daesh terrorist organization,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The statement carried by SPA state news agency stressed that Riyadh “stands by Iraq and its efforts to combat extremism and terrorism in all its form, as well as its financing”. — Agencies