A group of Gulf nations led by Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties as well as land, sea and air travel with Qatar on Monday, accusing the country of supporting Sunni extremist groups and Iranian-backed Shiite militants to destabilize the region.
Trump said he spoke with regional leaders in the wake of a recent meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and he had decided it was time to call on Qatar to end its support of terrorist groups.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said on Wednesday Gulf states could resolve a row with Qatar amongst themselves without outside help. He said his talks with Saudi Arabia and other nations during his first foreign trip were "already paying off" after leaders said they would take a "hard line on funding extremism".
Amid a raging diplomatic face-off between Qatar and its neighbours, US President Donald Trump has accused Doha of "historically" being a funder of terrorism and asked the Gulf emirate along with other nations to stop "teaching hate".
But Tillerson on Friday said the blockade was causing food shortages, the forced separation of families and children being pulled out of school.
The Qatari government says the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations established that hackers planted fake news to provoke retaliation against Qatar, MarketWatch reports, adding that Russian hackers may have been involved in accessing Qatar's state news service, according to U.S. intelligence sources.
The remarks from the president came as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain are engaging in a blockade with Qatar.
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"So we had a decision to make", Trump added. "Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end of the horror of terrorism".
"We don't see a military solution as an option" to the crisis, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said.
Despite calling for an ease to the blockade, Tillerson said Qatar needs to do more to address terrorism financing.
Qatar is home to both Al Jazeera and the region's largest U.S. military airbase - which is now the strategic nerve center of the USA air campaign against ISIS.
Just 90 minutes earlier, the secretary of state did briefly admonish the country for supporting terrorist groups.
Jubeir said that "for many years Qatar has taken steps to support certain organizations".
He said he had not been officially informed of any U.S. investigation into the alleged hacking of Qatar's news agency. "They will not have a positive impact on the region but a negative one", he told a press conference during a visit in Germany.
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