Omar Saif Ghobash - Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Russia HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk I am Sarah Montague. The Fall Arab nations that

cut all ties with Qatar because they accused it of funding and supporting

terrorism have toned down their demands of the Gulf state. They have

replaced a list of 13 specific demands with six principles. They

include combating extremism and terrorism, preventing financing and

safer havens, and suspending all acts that incite hatred or violence.

So, will it resolve the crisis that has gripped the Gulf? My guest today

is from one of those four countries, Omar Saif Ghobash, who is one of the

UAE's top diplomat. Is his country guilty of copper -- hypocrisy and

what have they achieved by isolating Qatar? Omar Saif Ghobash, welcome to

HARDtalk thank you. 13 demands replaced with six principles. What

has changed? Well, the 13 demands were actually presented in a

confidential manner to the mediator to the Mayor of Kuwait. They were

never meant for publication. It was Qatar who within an hour of

receiving the least publicised that. And so we really feel that that was

kind of undermining the mediation efforts. The principles on which of

those demands are based on what we have now come up with. And

presenting that to Qatar underworld in a public manner. Is it a toning

down of the demands? I don't think it is a toning down, no, the

principles are the same. It may be a question of how the principles are

worked out in reality. So, there is no, I don't think there is dispute

about the need globally to prevent the funding of extremism and

terrorism. No, these were specific demands. What was wrong about going

public with them? Were you embarrassed about them? No, we were

not embarrassed. What happens in the east is the desire to its -- save

face. We engaged in a confidential manner in passing on their demands.

This is the same reason why in 2013 and 2014 the agreements with signed

with Qatar were also kept confidential and secret on the

request of the Qataris government. In the spirit of preserving the face

of the Qataris we kept the demands secret. OK, well they have those 13

demands made public. You stand by them, do you? The principles are an

explanation as to what the demands are based on. So the demands are

still there. Your charge against the Qataris is that they were supporting

and funding terrorism. What evidence do you have that they funded

terrorism? I cannot present you evidence here. We have recordings,

voice recording. We have video evidence that we've managed to pick

up in the field, whether that is in Libya, in Yemen. Everybody knows for

the last few years Qatar has had a close relationship with al-Nusra,

which is referred to as Al-Qaeda affiliated. My assumption, our

assumption is if you are affiliated with Al-Qaeda, you are Al-Qaeda. He

recordings show what? And we have detailed what evidence you have?

There will be voice recording. Of what, though? People giving

instructions, known individuals giving instructions to known

individuals in Libya, Yemen and Syria on carrying out certain acts.

For example, a specific example I would like to give you, which is on

Yemen. We were in the process of engaging with Al-Qaeda, the Qataris

well alongside us. We have information, I don't have, but we as

a government has information that our Qatari allies informed Al-Qaeda

of our precise location and what we were planning to do. Then we

received four suicide bombers at our tour -- door and we were injured.

They deliberately sabotaged the attack and try to kill UAE soldiers?

We have had them dying as a result of Qatari activities. Why don't you

make the evidence public? Because this is a cultural issue where we

really don't like to have this kind of public confrontation. There is

always the desire to continue... It is a legal issue, isn't it?

Absolutely, yes. So is all of the stuff that is going on, this

conversation on the funding of terrorism, extremism and protein

narratives. It could very well convert into a legal issue. You have

made some very serious allegations. You, surely, need to go public with

the evidence for that? You know, what is funny as we have gone public

with a whole set of issues. What we find is that the receptivity is not

quite there. For us in the Middle East to begin to speak about

changing the narrative of extremist Islam, to cut the source of funding,

to pull back on those platforms that have been promoting this extremist

thinking, when we in the Middle East take that responsibility, we would

expect the global community to come and stand by us. It is extremely

important. If you put information in the public domain, that shows what

you are saying happens, then large parts of the world, the whole world

will understand why you are saying what you are doing and they will --

there will be some response to it. Our understanding is many

governments in the west do understand in operational terms what

the Qataris have been doing. You won't make a public? This is not the

time to make a public, no. One of the concerns that some people have

not least is when this row blew up in May there was a newspaper, a

number of newspaper reports, not least in papers which attributed

comments to the Emir of Qatar, saying he was speaking favourably of

Iran, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and has the last. It was reported in

the Washington Post that various US intelligence to show those reports

were a hack -- Hezbollah. Were a result of a hack orchestrated by

your country, the UAE. What do you say to that? Well, our ambassador in

Washington has come out with a statement saying that's not true.

The government has come out and said the same thing. I think that, you

know, what is truly important here is not whether there was or was it a

hack, it is the situation. I don't think the Emir of Qatar or deny he

has a strong relationship with... It absolutely matters! If the UAE

hacked Qatar to suggest... The UAE did not ask, orchestrate or plan or

ask someone else to hacked Qatar? Not at all stop what categorically

no? No. Do you accept someone categorically did? I don't think

that there was any hacking. So, you think that the Amir of Qatar did say

those things, you don't accept those denials? We don't accept their

denials but we know that they have established links with Hamas and the

Iranians, they met with the head of the brigade, a guy famous for

slaughtering Sunnis in Iraq and Syria. What denial is there? You are

of course ambassador in Russia, have you asked the Russians on this? No,

I haven't. Why not? It simply didn't come up. Are you not curious to

establish what information there is? On what precisely? On what exactly

was said and whether there was any hacking. The Russians, if there was

hacking, then, you know, it may have been non-government parties. This is

not the kind of stuff people would admit or talk about openly,

certainly not at my level. You're the one who suggested it might have

been the Russians. No, this is a newspaper report from the United

States. I am just picking on what I had heard. You believe it was the

Emir of Qatar who was saying these things that were reported as

inflaming, creating tensions and dividing the Gulf? It is a position

we have witnessed for many years, so, yes, I believe it is entirely

within his politics and his character to have said something

like that. The fact the US intelligence services are reported

as saying that the UAE was behind the attack at White...? It was a

newspaper report quoting intelligence officials. We don't

have anything official from the White House or the State Department

or anything else. For the time being we can put that to rest. You don't

trust anybody, anything said about that, but you absolutely believe

that the Emir of Qatar said those things? We believe it is in keeping

with his political positions and with his act of engagement in the

region, yes. OK, so, we come to the demands it had set out. Now, you

say, you are suggesting that they still remain, these effectively 13

demands? Yes. One of them on the list of 13 demands was that Qatar

stop all means of funding for individuals, groups or organisations

that have been designated as terrorists by Saudi Arabia, UAE

can't --, Egypt and other countries. What gives you, Saudi Arabia, other

countries have the right to decide in Qatar's terms who is a terrorist?

It is very interesting. We are focused, especially in the list of

demands we gave them, not on particular groups we have decided

on. We have looked at what is internationally recognised as a

terrorist. If you are looking at a UN list, European Union list, or an

American list, we are fairly certain. If you are talking about

funding Al-Qaeda, or the people who say Al-Qaeda affiliated groups, it

is fairly clear they are terrorists. I am not talking about that. It is

clear in the 13 list, the third point specifically mentioned

well-known groups. The fourth point was these individuals, groups or

organisations. The reason I say this is that with the extra information

that came with those demands, there were three Qatar -based charities

who the UN itself says has over the years built a strong partnerships

with these organisations based on shared humanitarian principles which

are strictly nonpolitical? They say that. Do you accept that actually

you have probably swept in people who shouldn't be on there? It is

quite possible. What is also possible is that the UN doesn't have

full information and maybe we should take it up with them and pass on all

of the information that we have to clarify this issue. Because the

suspicion is that what you and Saudi Arabia and others are doing is

labelling political opponents as terrorists because you don't like

what they are saying and you want to silence them. No, I don't think that

is the case. Actually, if you look at Gulf - Arab social media, public

media, there is vigorous debate taking place around events every few

days. You can see a kind of sudden surge of very kind of polarised

debate between liberal voices, and extremely conservative voices. So,

you know, I don't think that is the issue. The issue here is when we are

talking about very motivated extremist agendas. That is one of

the problems we are dealing with here. There is a charge of hypocrisy

that could be levelled at the UAE over this. The US department of

state said in 2015 the terrorist organisations exploited the UAE to

send and receive financial support and that sometimes your country was

loath freezing assets because of political situations. I don't know

what that is about and I find it interesting that the term used was

exploiting the system. I understand exploiting the system taking place.

I can assure you over the last few years we have increased our

monitoring through the central bank and other financial mechanisms to

increase the monitoring on exactly what is going on in our financial

system. Because there was a problem. Not least UAE support for the

Taliban. I don't think we ever supported the Taliban. We recognised

the Taliban for Wakely reason. We are one of three who recognise the

Taliban. We needed an administrative partner to deal with the Afghan

population we have in the country working as workers. We know that

when US Embassy cables were leaked in 2009 that the Taliban related

finance officials went to the UAE to raise or move funds and there was

even a suggestion of arms and procuring arms, at which you may be

now on top of, the problem may have gone away, but it was a problem

than. These problems never go away because you have to Qamshili monitor

and make sure. It is actually an effort to make sure you are on top

of it. It is clear that the Emirates, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are

pubs that bring people from the region together. And it is

absolutely possible that someone met someone else in our territory to

discuss those kinds of issues. I know through my own work and through

the government's work that we are very, very focused on this. We are

not interested in supporting... And Saudi Arabia? Saudi Arabia sits

alongside you pointing the finger at Qatar and the response has been very

widespread criticism. Tom Wilson, fellow at the centre to the response

to radicalisation at terrorism at the think tank The Henry Jackson

Society says Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly at the top of the list

of countries who have been of advancing extremism.

It is a very interesting distinction I would like to make between Qatar

in Saudi Arabia. With the revolution in Iran and the desire to build a

more cohesive sheer understanding. Because of that, American charitable

organisations have set up schools and educated pupils. In 2017, under

the current leadership of Saudi Arabia, is that still the case?

There are so many ways in which the Saudis have clipped the wings of the

clerical class to make sure that they understand that there is a

limit to how much influence and decision-making by clerics can have.

I would say there is a very big difference. The clerical class is

becoming self-conscious about the messages... The New York Times, last

year, you can tell me this is out of date. The kingdoms spent on told

millions promoting the radical form of Sunni ideology that claimed

responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and fan the flames of Islamic State.

It is a question to pose. IT pros that question in the book I have

Britain. As far as Saudi Arabia, you are pointing the finger at Qatar.

Are you saying that Saudi Arabia is not guilty of those things? I will

not say that they are a flourishing liberal democracy, but nowhere in

our part of the world... Do we have that kind of perfect narrative,

peaceful, optimistic narrative. We all have the problem. Where we are

different to Qatar, the rest of the state of the golf, Egypt are taking

strong steps to change that narrative. In Saudi Arabia, that is

actually happening. The problem is that we find with Qatar, they still

believe it is the narrative that will ultimately win on a populist

basis across the Arab world. You made the point, and you make it in

your book, the importance of almost a Western approach to free speech.

Here, one of the demands is to close down Al Jazeera. The fact that it

doesn't appear in the principles, are you accepting that Al Jazeera

should stay open? There are a couple of things we need to be clear about.

We need to differentiate between Al Jazeera English and Arabic. Talking

about Arabic. That is a venomous platform. It is about poison. Are

you insisting it be closed down? We say it effectively should be closed

down as an editorial that says, hate the West, hate the Shia, hate the

outsider, the Christian, the Jew. It is an extraordinary territorial list

form of free speech, it was as if China ordered Britain to close down

the BBC. I don't think there is a narrative between the two. This is a

request to stop poisoning people with an extremist narrative. Henry

Jackson... One of the things about Al Jazeera is that they are

incredibly effective. Somebody said to me, there are whole of channels

that have the same narrative. The problem is that Al Jazeera is so

effective and appealing that it pulls a fall in. Essentially, they

are extremely effective. It should still close? It should change to the

extent that it cannot be recognised as Al Jazeera today, Al Jazeera

Arabic. Al Jazeera English is in this because those journalists who

do not understand the Arabic language, they are doing a great job

and say, this has to be freedom of speech. What you are fighting for is

freedom of hate speech. It is incredibly provocative, emotionally

charged... Whether it is the economist or Al Jazeera, many people

make the point that the difficulty in the region is that there is not

enough of a free flow of ideas. You have something that is very unusual

and you want to shut it down. I don't think it is true. We want to

shut down the editorial that says, hate is the way forward.

Frustration, anger, destruction is the way forward. That is what Al

Jazeera Arabic does. You mention in your book, letters to a young

Muslim... You lost your father as a result of a terrorist attack as a

young man. These letters, or at least inspired by the idea of what

you want to communicate to your young sons. Which is what? Which is

that in the modern world, in 2017, 2016 when I wrote the book, it is

very important that any desire to be true to your religion, your face,

your principles, you should not lose sight of the fact that the world is

full of manipulators, people who are ready to use your good faith for

destructive purposes. Do your religion and the tax is in

documents, the exclamatory books, ask yourself whether this is really

appropriate for the 21st century. I would say that ultimately, you have

got to remember that you or an individual, with your dignity and

self-respect, you are the most precious thing. You have to hold

onto yourself. Who are those who are manipulating your religion? Well,

let's... I don't want to talk about Qatar again. There are state is

using the large number of young Arab males for their purposes. Jihadis

are expendable. Use them and move on. They are like bullets. That is a

major crisis. By clerics who don't have a full understanding of what

century they are living in and who insist on holding people back, the

narrative that the cleric knows and has access to... You blame some

imams for the poisonous version of Islam that can be spread around the

world? Yes, I think so. I also think that the world has changed over the

last 20 years in such a way that, what may be appropriate for a

village in a small town, a modulus, cut off from the west of the world,

that is no longer appropriate. When we look at Muslim charitable

organisations, when we start funding and teaching our version of Islam in

western societies in Asia, we have to be a bit more sensitive to what

it is we are exporting -- rest. Are we exporting our basic principles?

Are we consolidating basic principles of Islam? Or are we

exporting a homogenous society that didn't have access to the outside

world? Where is the change coming from? It begins with an awareness of

what is going on. We look at reports like the Henry Jackson Society and

wonder, maybe there is a point. Maybe what was aggressive language

used in a village in the Middle East is not appropriate to be used in

London or Birmingham or Manchester. It is extremely important that we

are self-conscious about this. That is down to individual, moderate

Muslims speaking up? Yes, and also up to people like me who have a

voice within government to make suggestions and proposals, to lobby

for diversity. How did your sums respond? My younger son responded

extremely well, my older son, for whom it was Britain, who is now 16,

he read a couple of chapters and decided he had a long life to live

and would take his time reading it. He is exactly the target age, isn't

he? Yes, he is. I will say that I am not particularly worried about him

being radicalised. To an extent, I was trying to make a statement to

myself and my society. Not necessarily my son, but your son,

your daughter, they may need the support that I tried to provide in

the book. It is a framework that links the texts and the very sort of

abstract legal texts that we have two-hour humanity. Close to need to

be linked. If you see a disconnect between the texts that we talk about

and our humanity, then we are in trouble. Omar Saif Ghobash, thank

you very much for coming on HARDtalk. Thank you very much.

There was still quite a lot of energy in the atmosphere,

during Wednesday afternoon some pretty intense thunderstorms

broke out across north Wales and parts of north-west England.

Weather Watchers pictures coming through of torrential downpours,