Qatar has prohibited the sale of products made in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Egypt that has imposed embargoes and severed diplomatic, air and road ties with the country in June last year.
According to reports, Ministry of Economy and Commerce has, on Saturday, called on all shops across the country to remove all products made in the four countries from their shelves. Inspectors will visit stores to ensure compliance with the order.
The Government said it was trying to “protect the safety of consumers” by banning products from the first four countries to cut ties with Qatar on June 5, 2017. The government’s directive is meant to “find new suppliers of the variety of goods impacted” by the blockade. It will try and stop products such as Saudi dairy goods from entering Qatar through a third country.
Read More: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt snap ties with Qatar
In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed ties with Qatar for its alleged support to terrorism and destabilizing the region. They also demanded that Doha should downgrade its ties with Iran. Several African countries have also broken ties with Qatar in support of Saudi-let quartet.
The Saudi rulers also asked Qatar to close down Al-Jazeera broadcaster, remove Turkish troops from its soil and end relations with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood movement, the group headed by ousted President Mohammad Morsi.
The four countries also imposed sanctions against Doha, including restrictions on Qatari aircraft using their airspace. Saudi Arabia totally closed its land border with the tiny country through which most of food supplies used to reach its market.
Read More: Trump calls Saudi Arabia to resolve Qatar crisis
Qatar denied all allegations and refused to yield and denounced the demands as unreasonable, claiming its sovereignty had been attacked. The standoff had forced Qatar to shift import routes to Kuwait and Oman, and buy goods from Iran and Turkey.
Following the embargo Iran and Turkey opened their airspace and trade routes for Qatar and supplied food and other necessary items. Iranian export to Qatar has grown ten folds.
Read More: Qatar’s emir: Saudi Arabia want “regime change”
According to a recent Associated Press investigative report, Elliott Broidy, a fundraiser for US President Donald Trump and his partner Lebanese American businessman George Nader had been promoting anti-Qatar policies at the highest levels of the US government over the past one and a half year against lucrative business favors from the Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and his UAE counterpart Mohammed Bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
The investigative report says that both Broidy and Nader spent a year in cultivating links with the two Crown Princes who were seeking to change US foreign policy with regard to their arch rival Qatar.
Meanwhile, Bahrain’s foreign minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifah has told the London-based Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper on Sunday, that there is no solution in sight for the diplomatic crisis with Qatar. “The information in our hands today does not indicate any glimmer of hope for a solution now, as the matter does not happen suddenly,” he said.
Bahrain’s top diplomat accused Qatar of prolonging the dispute by taking its case to Western allies rather than the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). He said, “We were expecting from the beginning of the crisis with Qatar that the emir of Qatar would go to Saudi [Arabia] but this did not happen.”