As of Jan. 11, Bahrain had opened its airspace to Qatar, as mentioned by the civil aviation affairs authority on 10 January 2021, following a U.S.-backed agreement by Arab states to end the Doha dispute.

The announcement comes after Riyadh announced a breakthrough at a summit to end the bitter political row in which a diplomatic, trade, and travel boycott was imposed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt in mid-2017. The reopening of air, land, and sea entry points for Qatar has already been declared by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia announced that the four states decided to restore all relations with Qatar that were cut because of claims that Doha supports terrorism. Qatar opposes this and argues that the embargo was aimed at curbing its sovereignty.

A senior UAE official said that while trade and travel relations could be restored, it will take more time to restore diplomatic links as parties regain faith.

Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry said Qatar’s coast guard detained Bahraini bodybuilding champion, Sami Al Haddad, while on a fishing cruise in a sign of continued tension and called on Doha “to stop attacking and unfairly arresting Bahraini fishermen at sea.” In a separate release, the director of Bahrain’s coast guard operations said that Haddad and another Bahraini had been detained in the third such incident since November on suspicion of breaching Qatari territorial waters.

No immediate announcement was made by the Qatari authorities. The Ministry of the Interior of Qatar said in December that its coastguard stopped a Bahraini cruiser catching fish in Qatari territorial waters and detained three people. Bahrain’s Ministry of the Interior accused Qatari coastguard vessels of breaching regional and international agreements the previous month after stopping two Bahraini ships within Qatari waters

Source: Reuters