An Arab Tightrope For India

THE BLOCKADE OF Qatar by a group of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia puts India in a piquant situation.

- Minhaz Merchant

New Delhi enjoys cordial relations with all the protagonists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made successful visits to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the two most aggressive members of the anti-Qatar coalition.

India has an excellent relationship with Qatar, the world’s largest producer of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). It is also India’s biggest supplier of natural gas. Prime Minister Modi’s high-profile visit to Israel on July 4 6, 2017 (the first by an Indian Prime Minister) was carefully followed by Tel Aviv’s Arab neighbours.

The elephant in the room in the Saudi-Qatar stand-off is Iran. While Riyadh and its Gulf allies claim that Qatar’s support for Islamist terrorists is the principal cause of the blockade, the real reason is Qatar’s growing closeness to Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia’s sworn Shia enemy.

Qatar and Iran share the world’s largest gas field (named North Dome on the Qatari side and South Pars in Iranian waters). Tehran has gleefully stepped into the intra-Arab breach by sending to Qatar ships loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables. It has allowed Qatari aircraft to use Iranian air space, bypassing Arab states which have blocked Qatari flights.

Turkey, which like Iran is a non Arab country, has also backed Qatar. It has already dispatched a small contingent of troops to Doha with tanks rolling through the Qatari capital last week. Unlike Shia Iran though, Sunni Turkey has good relations with the Saudis. It has the largest, most powerful army in the Middle East and maintains a military base in Qatar.