Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will meet Saudi Arabia’s King Salman in Mecca in a bid to resolve the Gulf’s worst diplomatic crisis in years.
Turkey’s foreign minister is expected to visit Saudi Arabia on Friday as part of his tour of mediatory talks with Middle East leaders over the Qatar blockade.
Mevlut Cavusoglu announced the visit after speaking with the foreign ministers of Kuwait, Qatar and Tunisia.
“This problem can’t be solved with embargoes and sanctions that go too far,” he said.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have all removed diplomatic connection with Doha over allegations the country supports terrorism and Iran. Qatar has denied all the allegations.
A blockade of air, land and sea connections have all placed extra pressure on Qatar, forcing the country to find new markets and shipping routes to source its commodities.
Many supermarkets in Qatar are currently filled with Turkish food supplies and Ankara announced plans to send hundreds more soldiers to its military base there, last week.
The foreign minister said that Qatar was looking for proof of the accusations levelled against it by those regional neighbours who have cut off bilateral relations.
“What is the problem, what are the accusations and what are the evidence? We must lay these out in order to solve this problem,” said Cavusoglu.
