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Saudi Arabia to Boycott OIC Summit in Qatar
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul-Aziz has informed the Qatari government that he would not attend the upcoming summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
The Asharq Al-Awast reported Monday that the crown prince cited as the reason of his decision the presence of an Israeli office in the Qatari capital Doha.
The newspaper quoted high-level sources as saying that Qatar sent its Foreign Minister Hamad Al-Thani to Riyadh late Tuesday to try to convince the Saudi side to take part in the summit, to be held on November 12-14.
After several hours of closed-door meeting, the Saudi crown prince refused to attend the summit, emphasizing it was not possible for him to attend an Islamic summit "held beside an Israeli office, especially when Doha had no such commitment that forces it to have an Israeli presence," the report said.
Qatar and Israel have trade offices in each other's capital but have no diplomatic relations.
Riyadh claimed that its stand was based on the resolution taken at last month's Arab Summit in Cairo which had called for the boycott of Israel in protest against the "brutal aggression" by Israeli forces on the Palestinians, which has so far left over 170 Palestinians dead.
The Cairo summit, held as the bloody Palestinian-Israeli clashes raged on, decided to freeze normalization of ties with Israel. But Qatar did not cut trade ties with Israel.
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