Tillerson looks to defuse Qatar crisis on Gulf tour

KUWAIT CITY: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrives Monday in Kuwait, the key mediator between Qatar and its Arab neighbours, for talks aimed at defusing the Gulf's worst crisis in years.
Tillerson will shuttle between Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia from Monday to Thursday in what is the first serious intervention by Washington in the Gulf crisis.
The dispute has seen a Saudi-led alliance impose sanctions on Doha over its alleged ties to both Islamist extremist groups and Shiite-dominated Iran.
As they met in Egypt last week, Saudi Arabia and its allies said they planned to tighten sanctions against the gas-rich emirate, after Qatar refused to comply with a list of demands.
A spokesman for Tillerson said ahead of his landing in Kuwait that it remained to be seen "if there's even a possibility of some outcomes" towards resolving the crisis.
"Right now, after Egypt, we're months away from what we think would be an actual resolution and that's very discouraging," RC Hammond told reporters.
On June 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt abruptly severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, suspending transport links with Doha and ordering all Qataris to repatriate within 14 days.
The four nations later issued a list of 13 demands to be met to lift the sanctions.
Qatar refused to meet the demands last week on the grounds they undermined its national sovereignty. It has also categorically denied having any ties to extremist groups.
Tillerson, the former chief executive of energy giant Exxon Mobil, arrives in the Gulf after a stop in Istanbul, where he discussed the Syria war to a failed 2016 coup in Turkey.