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Former adviser to Trump: Riyadh summit triggered siege on Qatar

October 25, 2017 at 3:08 pm

White House former chief strategist Steve Bannon [Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency]

US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia last May triggered the siege on Qatar according to one of Trump’s closest advisers.

Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist claimed, during an appearance at a Hudson Institute conference on Monday titled “Facing Violent Extremism: Qatar, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood”, that Trump’s visit to Riyadh was the main cause for the regional escalation against Qatar.

He said Saudi Arabia and its allies had become much more aggressive about fighting terrorism in the months since Trump’s visit. “They’ve had a fundamental change since that summit,” Bannon explained.

Bannon was invited to give the keynote address at the privately funded event hosted by the Hudson Institute, which is well-known for taking an extreme pro-Israeli position and having close ties with UAE Ambassador to Washington, Yusuf Al-Otaiba.

Read: Israel and UAE are normalising relations

A report in the McClatchy news bureau said that shortly after Bannon resigned from his post at the White House, the UAE hired a company close to Bannon to help in its anti-Qatar campaign.

Speaking about the relation between Trump’s visit and the blockade, Bannon said: “I do not think it is just a coincidence that two weeks after this summit, you saw the blockade imposed by the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia on Qatar.”

“We went to the summit with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and others. The first thing is that we have to pay attention to this funding for radical Islam, and there cannot be more [funding],” Trump insisted during the meeting with the heads of Arab and Muslim countries in Riyadh.

“You cannot be on two roads. On the one hand, you cannot say you are a friend and an ally, and on the other hand you fund the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas.”

Bannon described the situation in Qatar as “the most important issue currently taking place in the world.”

#QatarGate

In addition to being the catalyst for Qatar’s blockade, Bannon said: “The Trump Summit in Riyadh last May provoked changes within Saudi Arabia, including the promotion of Mohammed Bin Salman as Crown Prince.”

Changes include the clampdown on clerics unwilling to toe the Saudi government line. “Two or three weeks ago, there were 1,000 clerics who were arrested, or put under house arrest,” Bannon said.

A large number of arrests have been made since early October, involving more than 72 people, including prominent clerics, headed by Salman Al-Ouda, one of the most liberal voices within the country’s religious establishment