Senator Puts Hold on Arms Sales to Persian Gulf Nations Over Qatar Feud

Photo

WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Monday that he was putting a hold on any future American arms sales to a group of Persian Gulf nations in an apparent move to help resolve a bitter dispute between one of those countries, Qatar, and several of its Arab neighbors.

In an unusual letter to Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who heads the committee, said he would refuse to consent to weapons sales to the gulf nations until the feuding countries worked to end one of the worst political crises among Arab gulf states in years.

The nations, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, cut economic, diplomatic and travel ties with Qatar this month, accusing it of supporting terrorism.

Since then, Mr. Tillerson has tried to help mediate the deepening crisis but has signaled increasing exasperation with the Saudi-led group, first for enforcing a two-week embargo against Qatar without giving the tiny country any specific ways to resolve a dispute, and then on Sunday, after demands were issued, saying that many of them “will be very difficult for Qatar to meet.”

Mr. Tillerson’s efforts seemed to put him at odds with President Trump about who is to blame. Mr. Trump has openly sided with the Saudis, first on Twitter, then at a news conference.

Coming a day after Mr. Tillerson’s latest statement, Mr. Corker’s letter seemed intended to bolster the secretary’s diplomatic efforts to settle the disagreement. Major arms sales are subject to preliminary approval by the chairman and ranking member of the Senate and House committees overseeing foreign affairs before a statutory, 30-day congressional review process begins.

The United States has billions of dollars in proposed sales of fighter jets, warships, precision-guided bombs and other arms now pending to gulf nations in various stages of development and approval. Holding up approval of such highly sought-after weapons amounts to a shot across the bow of the affected countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, which agreed in principle to $110 billion in arms sales during Mr. Trump’s visit to the kingdom in May.

The hold does not apply to pending sales that have already been formally notified to Congress, such as the sale of $510 million in precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia, an aide to Mr. Corker said. It also does not apply to defensive, nonlethal assistance, including training.

Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Corker have forged a strong working relationship in the secretary’s first few months on the job, and congressional and administration officials said the senator’s letter was a high-profile example of how Congress could use the arms-sales notification process to influence policy. Typically, though, lawmakers do not wield this leverage quite this publicly, particularly on such a highly charged issue.

Mr. Corker notified Mr. Tillerson in advance of his intentions to send him the letter and make it public, an aide to Mr. Corker said.

“Before we provide any further clearances during the informal review period on sales of lethal military equipment,” Mr. Corker said in his letter, “we need a better understanding of the path to resolve the current dispute and reunify” the Gulf Cooperation Council, a regional group that also includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Qatar has historically played a maverick role in the Gulf Cooperation Council. It maintains ties with a range of Islamist groups throughout the region, relationships that other countries have found useful when negotiating hostage releases but have complained about when those groups challenge their rule.

Mr. Corker also said that “recent disputes among the G.C.C. countries only serve to hurt efforts to fight ISIS and counter Iran.”

Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the committee’s ranking Democrat, concurred. “I share Senator Corker’s concern that the current G.C.C. dispute distracts from our shared, most pressing security challenges — defeating ISIS and pushing back on Iran,” Mr. Cardin said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia and three other Arab countries, including Egypt, that recently cut diplomatic ties with Qatar issued a harsh list of demands on Friday, insisting that the wealthy but tiny gulf nation shut down the news network Al Jazeera, abandon ties with Islamist organizations and provide detailed information about its funding for political dissidents.

The demands, presented to Qatar through mediators from Kuwait, risked pulling other powers deeper into the rift by calling on Qatar to close a Turkish military base and to downgrade its ties with Iran — an onerous task given that Iran and Qatar share a large gas field that provides much of Qatar’s wealth.

The dispute also threatens myriad American diplomatic and security priorities in the gulf. The United States has more than 11,000 troops in Qatar at a major air base and at the forward headquarters of the Pentagon’s Central Command.

Before joining the administration, Mr. Tillerson was the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, which has extensive dealings with Qatar. Mr. Tillerson has been sympathetic to the Qataris in the dispute, initially calling on Saudi Arabia and its allies to unconditionally lift the embargo on Qatar while negotiations continued.

In his statement on Sunday, Mr. Tillerson urged the countries to tone down the talk and start negotiating. “We believe our allies and partners are stronger when they are working together towards one goal, which we all agree is stopping terrorism and countering extremism,” he said. “Each country involved has something to contribute to that effort. A lowering of rhetoric would also help ease the tension.”