The United Arab Emirates ambassador to Russia Omar Ghobash said that Gulf Arab states are considering new sanctions on Qatar, and could ask their trading partners to choose between working with them or Qatar, a tiny natural-gas rich state in the Gulf. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain severed diplomatic and travel ties with Qatar this month, accusing it of funding hardline Islamist militant groups in the region, a charge Doha denies. “There are certain economic sanctions that we can take which are being considered right now,” Omar Ghobash told the Guardian newspaper in an interview in London. “One possibility would be to impose conditions on our own trading partners and say you want to work with us then you have got to make a commercial choice,” he said.