UAE leader visits Qatar for first time since blockade

DOHA — The United Arab Emirates' president on Monday began his first visit to Qatar since the end of a nearly four-year regional blockade that put ties in the deep freeze.

Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan was greeted by Qatar's emir at the airport, officials said, in a trip that coincides with the ongoing football World Cup in Qatar.

It is the first state visit since January 2021, when a boycott of Qatar that started in June 2017 finally came to an end.

The visit, on the invitation of Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, "builds on the existing brotherly relations between the two nations and their people", the UAE's official WAM news agency said.

The first World Cup on Arab soil is taking place less than two years after Saudi Arabia and its allies the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties, claiming Qatar supported extremists and was too close to Iran, allegations that Doha denied.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, has already met the emir during the World Cup where he was pictured wearing a Qatar football scarf.

Although this is the UAE president's first visit since the blockade, ties have been gradually warming.