GCC Summit Moved to January 5 in Saudi Arabia

The annual Gulf Cooperation Council summit will be held on January 5 in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait’s foreign minister announced. The meeting is usually held in December; Bahrain had originally been scheduled to host it.

The meeting reportedly was postponed after failed attempts to reach an agreement between Qatar and a group of four Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt.

The Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is scheduled to attend the summit, the first time that Qatar’s head of state has attended since 2017.

Al Thani announced earlier this month that progress had been made in talks with Saudi Arabia.

In June 2017, GCC member-states Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, alongside non-GCC member Egypt began an air, sea and land blockade of Qatar, accusing it of fostering terrorism and cooperating with Iranian regional aggression. Qatar has denied these charges and refused to comply with the group’s demands to close a Turkish military base on its soil and cool diplomatic relations with Iran.