Qatar and the USA finalized Wednesday a $12 billion military deal for procurement of F-15 fighters by Qatar amid the Gulf Crisis opposing the tiny Arab state to its regional neighbors led by Saudi Arabia.
The Pentagon did not provide additional details on the sale but Bloomberg reported it could include as many as 36 warplanes.
The United States and Qatar have signed a deal for the purchase of F-15 fighter jets worth $12 billion even as the Donald Trump-led administration is trying to navigate through an ongoing diplomatic crisis in the Gulf countries.
This last November, the United States had approved to possibly sell up $21.1bn worth of F-15QA aircrafts to Qatar- around 72 of them.
"The nation of Qatar has unfortunately been a funder of terrorism, and at a very high level", Trump also declared later in a rose garden press conference.
Since then, Saudi Arabia has struggled to maintain relations with Qatar and Turkey who support terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a recent progress on the crisis, U.S. naval ships arrived in Doha for a joint military exercise. So far, the dispute between Doha and nations led by Saudi Arabia has yet to shake that partnership, though cracks are showing in responses from President Donald Trump and his administration. It is home to 10,000 American troops and a major American military base that acts as the center of US operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
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He was quoted by Kuwait's al-Qabas newspaper and Qatar-based Al Jazeera as saying that Turkey had a neutral stance toward Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
In remarks carried by state news agency QNA, Kuwari said Qatar's local World Cup organising committee had completed around 45 per cent of the work in accordance with plans.
It was unclear if the arrival of the two warships to Doha was planned before the Gulf rift or if it was a sign of support from the Pentagon. "America's support for Qatar is deep-rooted and not easily influenced by political changes", a Qatari official told Reuters.
Cavusoglu met Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in Doha as well as Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani as Ankara steps up its efforts to solve the standoff. Unable to take sides, Pakistan has been treading carefully with Saudi Arabia.
USA officials stressed neutrality towards the conflict at the time, highlighting the thousands of US troop based out of Qatar and its close relationship with Saudi Arabia.
That tensions are rising between Qatar and the other nations, who have their own large fleets of U.S. warplanes, but this purchase in a totally different context.
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