The 2017 Gulf Crisis: An Introduction

On 5 June 2017, three member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain—as well as Egypt, issued a coordinated statement severing all relations with Qatar. This “Quartet” closed their airspaces to the Qatar national airline (Qatar Airways), as well as banning Qatari vessels and vehicles from their territorial waters and lands. The boycott soon became a “Qatar blockade,” as the Quartet closed off access to Qatar, with an embargo on air, sea, and land traffic to and from the peninsula.