Trump offers to personally mediate dispute between Qatar, other Arab countries

President Donald Trump on Thursday expressed a willingness to be a mediator between Qatar and other Arab countries accusing it of supporting terrorism.

“While I do appreciate and respect the mediation, I would be willing to be the mediator,” Trump told reporters at a joint news conference alongside the emir of Kuwait. “I was telling the emir before that if I can help between UAE and Saudi Arabia … if I can help mediate between Qatar and, in particular, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, I would be willing to do so.”


Trump noted that he spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia by phone on Wednesday, describing their relationship as “very great” and calling him “a friend of mine.” And he suggested he could help strike a quick deal.

“I think you’d have a deal worked out very quickly. I think it’s something that’s going to get solved fairly easily,” Trump said. “Kuwait has been really the leader of getting it solved, and we appreciate that very much. But I do believe that we’ll solve it. If we don’t solve it, I will be a mediator right here in the White House. We’ll come together very quickly. I think we’ll have something solved.”

The U.S. in July announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Qatar “outlining efforts Qatar can take to fortify its fight against terrorism and actively address terrorism funding issues.”

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In a separate call with Salman last week, Trump “urged all parties to the Qatar dispute [to] find a diplomatic resolution.”

The president on Thursday also conveyed optimism about striking a peace deal in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians.

“They say it is the world’s most complex and difficult deal. You know that,” Trump told reporters. “But it is something that could happen. I believe that the relationships that we have with both can help. It’s an event that’s just never taken place.”

“Sometimes people think they’re close and it never happens, or it never happens successfully,” Trump continued. “I think we have a chance of doing it. I think the Palestinians would like to see it happen, I think the Israelis would like to see it happen, and usually when you have two groups that would like to see something happen, good things can happen. So I think there is a chance that there could be peace.”

Trump conceded that he says there could be peace “a little bit reluctantly” but pledged that the U.S. would give its best shot.

And he dismissed the notion that Syrian leader Bashar Assad would use chemical weapons on his people again after the U.S. launched punitive airstrikes. Trump acknowledged that the U.S. “would be extremely upset” if Assad did use chemical weapons again, “but nothing would change.”

“As far as Syria’s concerned, we have very little to do with Syria other than killing ISIS. What we do is we kill ISIS,” Trump said. “And we have succeeded in that respect. We have done better in eight months of my presidency than the previous eight years against ISIS. So ISIS is rapidly disappearing, as you know, and that’s because of our great military.”