UAE summons Qatar envoy over ‘insults’ by Yusuf Qaradawi

ABU DHABI: The UAE summoned the Qatari ambassador on Sunday to protest against remarks made by a Muslim Brotherhood-linked cleric who slammed the Emirates for jailing hardliners, the Foreign Ministry said.
The summons was the first of its kind by a GCC state against another GCC state since the bloc’s formation in 1981.
Qatar’s ambassador to the UAE, Fares Al-Nuaimi, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Abu Dhabi and handed “an official letter of protest” over “insults” by cleric Yusuf Qaradawi, WAM reported.
Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born Muslim scholar, wields huge influence through his regular appearances on Al-Jazeera television from his base in exile in Qatar, where he has lived for decades.
He is a staunch backer of Egypt’s deposed President Muhammad Mursi, unlike the UAE which supports the interim government installed in Cairo by the military that overthrew Mursi last July 3.
In a weekly Friday prayers sermon in Doha last month, Qaradawi lashed out at the UAE, accusing it of “standing against Islamic government, punishing its leaders and putting them in jail.”
On Saturday, Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Attiyah disavowed Qaradawi’s remarks, saying “they do not reflect Qatari foreign policy” and insisting that ties between the two nations are “strategic in all aspects.”
But the UAE Foreign Ministry said that response “did not reflect a decisive stance rejecting Qaradawi’s speech,” and therefore Abu Dhabi had to take “an unprecedented measure” and summon Doha’s envoy.