16 June 2017•Update: 17 June 2017
By Hayati Akcay
ORDU, Turkey
Turkey hopes the “artificial crisis” between Qatar and other Arab states gets resolved soon, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Friday.
On June 5, five Arab countries -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Yemen -- abruptly cut diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism. Qatar denied the accusations, calling the moves towards its diplomatic isolation as "unjustified”.
In remarks made to the media in the northern Black Sea province of Ordu, Kurtulmus said Turkey made maximum efforts to find a solution to the Gulf crisis in the shortest possible timeframe.
He said the problem can be solved in a short time because there are no grounds to the crisis.
“This is completely an artificial crisis. This crisis has no basis, no socio-political background…We wish for the crisis to be resolved quicker than other crises,” he said.
Kurtulmus recalled Turkey’s effort to mediate the crisis, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s discussion with regional and global leaders over the phone, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s visit to Gulf states.
“We made efforts to resolve the problem in the shortest possible time period.
“We hope the conflict between brotherly and friendly countries ends as soon as possible," he added.
