The Qatar boycott: no end in sight

Diplomatic efforts to end the crisis have stalled, but there's no indication of imminent escalation

In June last year, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt imposed an economic boycott on Qatar. They accused the Qataris of, among other things, supporting terrorism and working in cahoots with Iran. Since then, a ruthless war of words in the media has poisoned the atmosphere within the Gulf Cooperation Council. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has recently hosted more dissenting members of the ruling family in Qatar, suggesting that the coalition still wants to see regime change in Doha. Despite the bad feeling between the two sides in the dispute there have been some inconsistencies. For example, Qatar continues to supply natural gas to the UAE via the sub-sea Dolphin pi