Saudi Arabia’s pre-conditions for restoring diplomatic and economic relations with Qatar are not realistic, even if some elements could form the basis for an eventual deal, the senior adviser to US secretary of state Rex Tillerson has said.

In his first foray into shuttle diplomacy since his appointment, Tillerson is planning to spend most of the week in the Gulf in a bid to mediate in a month-long dispute between Qatar and four neighbouring countries: Saudia Arabia; Bahrain; Egypt; and the United Arab Emirates. Tillerson travelled on Monday to meet senior figures in Kuwait, the regional mediating power that has so far failed to de-escalate the dispute.

Tillerson’s communications adviser, RC Hammond, said the complete set of Saudi demands were not viable even though constituent elements were worth discussing. But he added that the international community was losing patience with the Gulf’s funding of extremist groups. Hammond said that at the G20 summit last week, European countries had voiced their concern that the Gulf crisis was affecting security efforts and that all countries in the region needed to act against terror funding. “This is a two-way street,” he said. “There are no clean hands.”(theguardian)…[+]