Kuwait’s emir tells US President he is hoping for ‘an early end’ to the GCC crisis

Kuwait’s emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah held talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington on Wednesday, where he discussed about bilteral relations as well as issues with Yemen and Palestine.

Sheikh Sabah also mentioned that efforts are underway to resolve the GCC crisis, the official Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) reported.

Kuwait has acted as a mediator in the current split between Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The four Arab allies severed trade, diplomatic and transport links with Doha in June last year after accusing it of supporting terrorist groups.

The United States is understood to be interested in holding a US-GCC summit later in the year but a lack of progress in talks between the two sides has made this seem increasingly unlikely.

Read: Trump’s meetings with Gulf leaders deemed unlikely to resolve Qatar dispute

“We are going to explore ways for solving the Gulf crisis in the hope of putting an early end to it,” Sheikh Sabah told Trump on Wednesday.

The Kuwait emir also said that talks were on to “out an end to the destructive fighting” in Yemen which has a “destabilising impact” on the region’s security.

“We, as well as the whole world, hope that the intra-Yemeni peace talks will lead to the desired results”, Sheikh Sabah said.

“We will review the achievement made under our firm partnership in the framework of the international coalition against terrorism. We wil also discuss the latest developments of regional and international issues, the foremost among which is the Palestine question,” he added.

The two leaders also discussed developing bilateral military cooperation frameworks, security cooperation and increasing the volume of trade and investment exchange between the two countries.

Meanwhile Trump said that the US and Kuwait have “large-scale” trade and investment ties and that the GCC state was a “great partner” in their work together against terrorism.

This is the third time in one year that the Kuwaiti emir is meeting the US President.