Okaz/Saudi Gazette

NEW YORK — Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said that Saudi Arabia can wait patiently for up to 10-15 years until Qatar changes its behavior and complies with the global community’s call for fighting terror. Addressing an event at the Council on Foreign Relations here on Wednesday evening, Al-Jubeir said that Qatar has been funding extremism and inciting instability in the region since the 1990s.

He said that the Qataris harbor and shelter terrorists, including the Muslim Brotherhood. “Our relations will remain frozen until Qatar changes its conduct. Jubeir said that the Kingdom is waiting for Qatar to change, and implement the things they promised to implement. He asked the American audience “how many years they had taken to restore relations with Castro’s Cuba. For us, perhaps this would be the case with Qatar and it is good if they admit their issue and that will help resolve the problem.”

The minister said that Saudi Arabia does not have any enmity toward Qatar. “We suffered from their contradictory conduct toward us and that constituted a danger to our citizens and security, and therefore we took measures against it,” he said.

Al-Jubeir also demanded an apology from Canada, denouncing an “outrageous” tweet by Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland directed at the Kingdom last month, and accusing them of treating the Kingdom like “a banana republic.”

“What are we? A banana republic? Would any country accept this?” he asked. “You owe us an apology. It is very easy to fix — apologize, say you made a mistake.”

Jubeir’s comments cast doubt over rumors that both countries would reach a quick resolution. Freeland had mentioned that she intended to speak to Jubeir on the sidelines of the UN meetings this week. However, Jubeir said that Saudi Arabia’s stance in the dispute remains the same, and that Canada did not change its stance either. “We did not do this, you did. Fix it. You owe us an apology. Apologize, say you made a mistake,” he said. “In Canada we became a political football. Find another ball to play with, not Saudi Arabia.”

Jubeir also criticized Canada for making such demands, adding that many countries like the US, UK and Germany have criticized Saudi Arabia over similar issues before, but never made demands. “It is outrageous from our perspective that a country will sit there and lecture us, and make demands. ‘We demand the immediate release’.. Really? We demand the immediate independence of Quebec and the equal granting of rights to Canadian Indians,” Jubeir said.