Turkey to send 11 tons of aid to Qatar

By Ugur Aslanhan

ISTANBUL

Turkey will continue to help Qatar and plans to send the Gulf country another aid ship carrying 11 tons of humanitarian aid, according to the economy minister on Monday.

"A ship carrying 4,000 tons of aid is going to [Qatar] right now and then another ship carrying 11 tons of aid will also go,” Nihat Zeybekci said during an iftar event in Istanbul.

“They [Qatar] wanted from us particularly milk products, and eggs and we’ve sent 90 planes [loaded with aid] and met all their needs," he said.

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 without presenting any evidence of their claims.

Mauritania followed suit shortly afterward, while Jordan downgraded its diplomatic relations with Doha and closed the local office of Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news channel.

Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Bahrain also closed their airspace to Qatari aircraft and gave Qatari diplomats 48 hours to leave their respective countries.

Riyadh has also sealed its land border with Qatar, geographically isolating the small Gulf peninsula.

Other countries to have recently cut diplomatic ties with Qatar include the Maldives and the Comoros Islands, along with Libya’s Tobruk-based government, which supports putschist general Khalifa Haftar and which lacks any international recognition.

Qatar denies all accusations that it is a supporter of terrorism, describing moves to isolate it by its fellow Arab countries as “unjustified”.