Iran Was First Country to Help Qatar: Envoy

Qatar’s ambassador to Tehran has said Iran played a major role in easing the impact of a Saudi-led siege on the Arabian Peninsula country, AVA Diplomatic reports.

“A whole year has passed since the siege of the Qatari government, and the Qatari people will not forget actions of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain against our country,” Ambassador Ali bin Hamad al-Sulaiti wrote in an op-ed published in the Persian-language daily Iran.

Nor will they forget the governments and nations that sided with Qatar in the midst of the crisis, he added.

Sulaiti said Iran was the first country that came to Qatar’s assistance after the Saudi-led blockade began, helping soften the effects of the siege on Qatari citizens.

Iran, he wrote, opened its airspace to Qatari airplanes and immediately sent food supplies to the Arab country to offset the effects of the sudden halt to imports to Qatar by the quartet of the boycotting countries.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt began the economic siege of Qatar after cutting diplomatic ties with the tiny nation country last June.

The diplomatic crisis, the worst since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein and the subsequent Persian Gulf War, has seen relations sink to their lowest level in decades.

Following the siege, Doha decided to return its ambassador to Tehran in August, more than 20 months after recalling him in conformity with Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic.