UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain withdraw ambassadors from Qatar

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain announced Wednesday they were withdrawing their ambassadors from Qatar which, they said, was not committed to the principles of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

In a joint statement, the three GCC member states said the decision was to "protect the security and stability" in their countries, Xinhua reported.

The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

They said Qatar has not yet implemented the Gulf Security Agreement signed in November last year, which aims to enhance security cooperation to deal with new threats faced by the regional countries.

At a meeting Tuesday, GCC foreign ministers tried to convince Qatar of the importance of implementing the agreement, but the country showed no commitment.

The three GCC countries said they had tried to tell Qatar not to interfere in the internal affairs of any member state, as they had endorsed in the agreement. But Qatar failed to comply.

They also asked Qatar not to support any party aiming to threaten security and stability of any GCC member, pointing to Qatar's support to the Muslim Brotherhood movement that is banned in most Gulf states.

Earlier, Abu Dhabi summoned the Qatari ambassador to the UAE to protest statements made by the Doha-based religious cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

In a sermon during Friday prayers, Qaradawi criticised the UAE for its stance against the Muslim Brotherhood, the former ruling party in Egypt. The party's former leader Mohamed Morsi was ousted as the country's first democratically elected president by the military in July last year.

Earlier in January, the religious cleric said the UAE "would not support an Islamist government", insinuating that the UAE supported a military removal of Egypt's former president.

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have also supported the Egyptian military. They, together with the UAE and Kuwait, have provided more than $12 billion in financial aid to Cairo.

Qaradawi is head of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated International Federation of Muslim Scholars. Many of its members argue that the military's ousting of Morsi is a "coup".

The Muslim Brotherhood as a movement and political party is banned in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Last year, the UAE arrested dozens of foreign and local supporters of the group, and sentenced some to life-long prison terms for planning "terror acts" to destabilise the Gulf state.