The US president also spoke by telephone on Wednesday with Abu Dhabi's crown prince and stressed the importance of unity among Gulf Arab states, the White House said.
Trump "emphasized the importance of maintaining a united Gulf Cooperation Council to promote regional stability, but never at the expense of eliminating funding for radical extremism or defeating terrorism," during a call with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, Abu Dhabi's crown prince, the White House said in a statement.
Not surprisingly, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister insisted on Tuesday, Qatar must end its support for the Palestinian group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood before ties with other Arab Gulf states could be restored.
The US Connection
Interestingly, the Inter-Arab diplomatic crisis erupted days after President Donald Trump attende the first American-Islamic Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. One day after the summit on May 21, former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates launched a scathing assault on Qatar, criticized its support for "Islamists", at an event hosted by the pro-Israeli Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). "Tell Qatar to choose sides or we will change the nature of the relationship, to include downscaling the base," Gates said.
According to Al Jazeera, the night before Gates was scheduled to speak at a high-profile Washington conference on Qatar, the UAE's ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, using a nickname of UAE Crown Prince Muhammed bin Zayed emailed Robert Gates asking him to "give them hell".
On May 24, Qatar News Agency was reportedly targeted by hackers with "fake" comments purportedly criticizing US foreign policy attributed to Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Qatar News Agency (QNA) platforms that sparked a regional media war. Qatar denied the statement attributed to the emir. The emir's false remarks were picked up by Saudi and UAE media.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation team arrived in Doha after the Qatari government asked the United States for help following the security breach by hackers on its official media platform, QNA.
Hackers released the first series of emails which were taken from the inbox of the UAE's ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, including the email to Robert Gates on May 22.
The Intercept reported that the emails, released by a group called "Global Leaks", show a close relationship between the UAE ambassador Otaiba and a pro-Israel, neoconservative think-tank - the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
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