Saudi king threatens to wage war on Qatar over possible S-400 deal

PARIS: Saudi Arabia has threatened military action against Qatar if it goes ahead and acquires Russia’s top of the range S-400 air defence missile system, Le Monde daily reported.

Citing information it had obtained, Le Monde said on Friday that Riyadh had written to French President Emmanuel Macron asking him to intervene to prevent the deal going ahead and to help preserve regional stability.

There was no immediate official reaction from the president’s office or the French foreign ministry to the report.

Saudi Arabia, backed by other regional powers including Bahrain and the Unite Arab Emirates, broke off relations with Qatar in June last year, accusing the Gulf state of supporting Islamist groups and of being too close to Iran -- Riyadh’s arch rival in the region.

They subsequently imposed economic sanctions on Qatar which has consistently rejected the charges against it.

In an effort to ease its isolation, Qatar has sought new friends, including Russia.

In January, it announced that talks with Moscow on supplying the sophisticated S-400 system were at an "advanced stage".

Le Monde said that in the letter sent to the French president, Saudi King Salman had expressed his "deep concern" with the discussions between Doha and Moscow and warned about the risk of escalation.

Saudi Arabia "would be ready to take all necessary measures to eliminate this defence system, including military action," the newspaper wrote.In January, Qatar's ambassador to Russia had also said that negotiations for the acquisition of S-400 were "at an advanced stage."

The announcement came about three months after Russia and Qatar inked an agreement on military and technical cooperation during a visit by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to Doha last October.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Russia-based defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said Saudi's opposition to the possible Qatar deal will not affect Russia's decision, as Moscow's years-long efforts to forge trade ties with Saudi Arabia have not worked out due to Riyadh's political expectations.

"Saudi Arabia has been clearly attaching political strings to any possible deal with buying Russian weapons... that Russia should scale down its cooperation with Iran primarily and maybe modify its position in Syria," Felgenhauer said.

"Qatar is not attaching such strings (and) Russia would not militarily try to get involved in anything that is happening in the (Persian) Gulf... In any case these anti-aircraft missiles, if they ever appear in Qatar, this will not be any time soon," he added.

In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, in a scheme generally believed to have been orchestrated by Riyadh. The four countries accused Qatar of sponsoring “terrorism” and destabilizing the region, an allegation strongly denied by Doha.

Several African countries have also broken ties with Qatar in support for the Saudi-led quartet.

The Saudi-led quartet presented Qatar with a list of demands and gave it an ultimatum to comply or face consequences. The demands included closing the Doha-based Al Jazeera broadcaster, removing Turkish troops from Qatar’s soil, scaling back ties with Iran, and ending relations with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood movement.

The quartet also imposed sanctions against Doha, including restrictions on Qatari aircraft using the airspace of the four countries.

To further pressure Qatar, Saudi Arabia totally closed its land border with its tiny neighbor, through which much of Qatar’s food supply crossed.