Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Image used for representational purposes only.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

U.S. special Envoy Steve Witkoff. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar. File
| Photo Credit: AP

As world leaders gathered in Munich, Germany, for Europe’s top annual security conference, placating, pleasing, and managing US President Donald Trump stood as a top agenda. Trump’s phone call to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, US Vice-President J.D. Vance’s disruptive speech challenging Europe, and, by association, the very nature of trans-Atlantic alliances, and demands to end the Ukraine conflict, has led to a mad rush to host such a process, in the Gulf. The question that perhaps comes immediately to mind, even though the conflict in Gaza remains a major global flashpoint, is, why?

The Meeting Between Rubio And Lavrov

Russia and the US are preparing to start initial consultations on Ukraine following an ice-breaking meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh. For Saudi Arabia and its powerful heir-apparent, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, this is a moment of both regional and global reckoning. Gulf powers in the Middle East have now been for a while re-positioning and re-posturing their geopolitics. This process started much before Trump’s return to the White House—arguably, prior to even the Russian war against Ukraine. The roots of this shift lie in two main realities. First, a change in the construct of global power contestation, that is, a bi-polar competition between the US and China and a demand for multipolarity by a host of middle powers looking to secure their own interests and not get caught in the Washington-Beijing dynamics. The second reality relates to a general idea of the US becoming increasingly unwilling to mobilise militarily power to protect its allies.

Reconsidering America’s Role

Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are evaluating the very fundamentals of the decades-long American hegemony, which has provided security blankets in the region. This also provides them with an opportunity to build their own geopolitical repertoire as middle powers with their own agency, instead of being viewed as client states, a tag that has plagued many of them for decades. The UAE as well has thrown its hat into the ring, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy landed in Abu Dhabi, mere hours after both Russia and the US eluded to excluding Kyiv from talks regarding Ukraine’s own future (Zelenskyy later cancelled a planned visit to Saudi). While this position by the Trump administration delivered tremors across European capitals, it has also played into an increasingly constrained space between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for regional influence. And peace diplomacy, or mediation, is the flavour of the day.

However, the proverbial gold-rush to host Ukraine talks has more solid foundations in regional competition than an international one. For long, Oman has been the state that has consistently pitched itself as the main mediator, playing the role of ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’, where Muscat seemingly prioritises neutrality and offers a common ground for warring parties, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi militia, or even the US and Iran, to talk.

The Qatar Question

Saudi Arabia and the UAE installed a blockade against Qatar between 2017 and 2021 for what they saw as Doha not aligning and punching above its weight, and, more specifically, for its support for Political Islam. But the Qatari leadership had another trick up its sleeve to ratchet its power quotient. In February 2020, under Trump’s first tenure, the Taliban in Afghanistan and the US signed a historic agreement for the latter’s exit from a two-decade long war in the country. Doha hosted the political office for the Taliban, and managed Kabul, to deliver this outcome to a president who, more than anything else, adores deals. This “success” gained Qatar the title of becoming America’s first and preferred ‘major non-NATO ally’ in the region. Today, Qatar also hosts America’s largest military base in the Middle East. For others, such as the UAE, the meteoric rise of Qatar’s influence in Washington was seen as a challenge. Within Abu Dhabi, questions were raised with Emirati diplomats in the US on why the Taliban’s office was not hosted in either Abu Dhabi or Dubai.

Saudi And UAE Have Bigger Goals

For Saudi Arabia, despite its functional relations with Russia and China alike, a security relationship with the US remains paramount. The same strategic aim is consistent for the UAE as well, one of the few Arab states that normalised relations with Israel as part of the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords and which continues to have functional relations with Iran. Despite continuing pressures on Saudi Arabia and the UAE to help deliver lasting solutions to the Israel-Palestine crisis and the Israel-Hamas war, both have broader, long-term aims with regard to their positions as poles-of-power within a multipolar framework. Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi share this world view with the likes of India, but American power projection is infinitely more critical to political structures in the Middle East. This is truer today after the experience of the Arab Spring, and, more recently, the collapse of the Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria at the hands of a self-styled ‘lapsed’ jihadist group, the Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham (HTS).

Is This The Future Of Mediation?

The Saudis are not stopping just at giving space to the US and Russia to debate Ukraine. As per reports, Riyadh is also open to hosting talks between Iran and the US over the former’s nuclear programme. The Saudi-Iran détente was achieved in March 2023 with the help of China, the main competitor to the US, and a state that has unreservedly supported Arab positions in Gaza. Beijing, meanwhile, also remains open to mediating and helping to bridge political gaps across the region. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visits to the region have been welcomed with gusto by Saudi Arabia and the UAE alike, both as a function of being the world’s second-largest economic power and using this position to hedge risk with Western partners. The future of mediation between the Riyadh-Abu Dhabi-Doha trifecta is a cat and mouse game within the Arab construct. External powers such as the US, Russia, and China, are part of the utility kit. This push for one-upmanship will have a tremendous impact on regional politics where in the coming years economic and political competition is only expected to increase.

(Kabir Taneja is Deputy Director and Fellow, Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Qatar has committed to investing $10 billion in India across various sectors, the two nations said in a joint statement on Tuesday, after Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani visited New Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he had a “very productive meeting” with Qatar’s Emir, who was on a two-day visit to New Delhi.

“Trade featured prominently in our talks. We want to increase and diversify India-Qatar trade linkages,” Mr Modi said in a post on X. It was the first such visit by a Qatari Emir to the South Asian nation in 10 years.

According to the statement, Qatar will invest $10 billion in India in infrastructure, technology, manufacturing, food security, logistics, hospitality and other sectors.

The two countries will aim to double their annual trade to $28 billion in the next five years and are exploring the signing of a free trade agreement, the Indian foreign ministry said earlier in the day.

Bilateral trade between the two nations stood at $18.77 billion in the fiscal year that ended in March 2023, mainly comprising liquefied natural gas imports from Qatar.

Qatar accounted for more than 48% of India’s LNG imports that year.

The two sides said they would work to enhance bilateral energy cooperation, including mutual investments in energy infrastructure, as well as look at settlement of bilateral trade in their respective currencies.
 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Qatar has committed to investing $10 billion in India across various sectors, the two nations said in a joint statement on Tuesday, after Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani visited New Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he had a “very productive meeting” with Qatar’s Emir, who was on a two-day visit to New Delhi.

“Trade featured prominently in our talks. We want to increase and diversify India-Qatar trade linkages,” Mr Modi said in a post on X. It was the first such visit by a Qatari Emir to the South Asian nation in 10 years.

According to the statement, Qatar will invest $10 billion in India in infrastructure, technology, manufacturing, food security, logistics, hospitality and other sectors.

The two countries will aim to double their annual trade to $28 billion in the next five years and are exploring the signing of a free trade agreement, the Indian foreign ministry said earlier in the day.

Bilateral trade between the two nations stood at $18.77 billion in the fiscal year that ended in March 2023, mainly comprising liquefied natural gas imports from Qatar.

Qatar accounted for more than 48% of India’s LNG imports that year.

The two sides said they would work to enhance bilateral energy cooperation, including mutual investments in energy infrastructure, as well as look at settlement of bilateral trade in their respective currencies.
 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Minister of Petroleum and VP Delcy Rodriguez, OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais, and First Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation Pavel Sorokin at India Energy Week 2025, in New Delhi on Tuesday
| Photo Credit: PIB

Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas H.E. Hardeep Singh Puri said India was planning to increase the usage of liquified natural gas (LNG) from 6% to 15%, for which long-term agreements have been signed with Qatar.

Mr. Puri was inaugurating the third edition of the India Energy Week 2025 at the Yashobhoomi Convention Centre in New Delhi on Tuesday (February 11, 2025). Stating that India was not facing any energy deficit, he said as part of adopting clean energy, the country was installing massive LNG storage infrastructure and increasing the production of bio fuels to help achieve 20% usage of green energy. The bio fuel adoption is planned to be achieved through the provision of incentives and subsidies for electrolysers, he added. 

The Union Minister pointed out that as part of having a diversified portfolio of energy requirements for long-term purposes, 500 million tonnes of biofuel feedstock will be used, along with the scaling of hydrogen energy to achieve 5 million metric tonnes by 2030. Under this hydrogen project, $96 billion was pumped into hydrogen investments, and for LNG, $30 billion, in refining and petrochemical expansion.

India has achieved 100% electrification and has made a mark in providing access to clean cooking in the country through the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), Mr. Puri said.

After participating in a session on ‘Shaping the new world energy order and trade map’, he launched the open acreage licensing policy X, in which 25 blocks measuring 1,91,986 sq. km were identified for hydrocarbon exploration and licensing policy in the country.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a delegation of senior officials to Qatar for negotiations on a hostage release and Gaza ceasefire deal, his office said Saturday.

Netanyahu held a meeting in Jerusalem with US President-elect Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, a representative of current US President Joe Biden and senior Israeli officials, the prime minister’s office said in a statement. 

Following the meeting, Netanyahu instructed the heads of the Mossad spy agency and Shin Bet security agency as well as General Nitzan Alon and foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk “to depart for Doha in order to continue advancing a deal to release our hostages”, the statement said. 

The United States has for more than a year been mediating talks alongside Qatar and Egypt for an end to the war in Gaza alongside the release of hostages.

The announcement was welcomed by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group for those held in Gaza, which called it “a historic opportunity to secure the release of all our loved ones”.

“Leave no stone unturned and return with an agreement that ensures the return of all hostages, down to the last one,” it said in a statement.

Indirect negotiations between Israel and the Islamist militant group Hamas resumed last weekend in Qatar.

The discussions are currently focused on the immediate freeing of hostages taken by the Islamist group during its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.  

Biden, who will leave office on January 20, said on Thursday there had been “real progress” in the talks.

Trump, who will replace Biden, promised “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released by his inauguration.

The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

During the attack, Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage, of whom 94 remain in the Gaza Strip, including 34 the Israeli military has declared dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed 46,537 people, the majority civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory considered reliable by the United Nations.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Dhaka:

Bangladesh’s ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia flew to London on a special royal air ambulance sent by the Emir of Qatar on Tuesday for medical treatment. The three-time former Premier, who is the head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), is reportedly suffering from ailments including liver cirrhosis, cardiac disease and kidney problems.

The 79-year-old leader left the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka late Tuesday. Before that, hundreds of her supporters gathered outside her residence in Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan area to see her off, according to Dhaka Tribune. 

Her motorcade from her home to the airport reportedly took nearly three hours to cross about a 10-kilometre stretch, with scores of supporters trying to greet her on the way, creating traffic chaos. The journey was broadcast live by Bangladeshi television stations.

Ms Zia is the widow of Bangladesh’s former President Ziaur Rahman. In London, she would reportedly unite with her son Tarique Rahman, who has been residing in the United Kingdom, with his family since 2008. This would be reportedly the first reunion Ms Zia with her son, who is also BNP’s acting chairman,  in seven years and her first overseas trip since her release from jail.

The BNP chief was sentenced to 17 years in jail under ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s rule following two corruption cases stemming from 2001-2006 when she was prime minister. Her supporters claim the charges were politically motivated, an allegation Ms Hasina’s administration denied. 

Under Bangladesh’s interim government under Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Ms Zia was acquitted in one of the cases in November and an appeal in the second case is in court. 

Ms Zia left Dhaka on Tuesday on a special air ambulance sent by Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, her personal physician, AZM. Zahid Hossain told the Associated Press.

Bangladesh’s Uncertain Future

The BNP leader left behind a South Asian nation grappling with uncertainty over its political future after the 15-year rule of her archrival Sheikh Hasina ended with her ousted in a student-led mass uprising in August 2024. Ms Hasina fled into exile in India as she and her close aides faced charges of killing hundreds of protesters during a mass protest movement that began in July.

Ms Zia’s party has been bargaining with the Yunus-led government for an election sometime this year. Yunus said his government wants to make some major reforms before planning a poll in December this year or in the first half of 2026.

The former Prime Minister’s departure could create a symbolic vacuum in the country’s politics amid efforts by a student group that led the anti-Hasina protest to form a new political party. In the absence of Ms Hasina and her secular Bangladesh Awami League party, the rise of Islamist political parties and other Islamist groups has been visible in the Muslim-majority country of 170 million people.