now the long-running dispute between

qatar and its gulf neighbors appears to

be at an

end after the signing of a document by

leaders at a meeting of the gulf

cooperation council in saudi arabia

the emir of qatar embraced the saudi

crown prince mohammed bin salman as he

arrived in saudi arabia for a summit

aimed at resolving the rift it's the

first time that sheikh tamim bin hamad

al-thani has taken part in a gcc summit

since

saudi arabia the uae and bahrain imposed

an

embargo on his country in 2017 over

accusations

of supporting terrorism which qatar has

denied our middle east business

correspondent samir hashmi

is watching the developments now this is

the

41st gcc summit but clearly one of the

most significant ones in recent years

and that was

quite evident when sheikh al-thani was

embraced by

crown prince mohammed bin salman the de

facto head

of saudi arabia when he arrived in ula

to attend

the gcc summit and the pictures are

quite

significant also given the bitter

rivalry between saudi arabia and qatar

over the last three and a half years now

this deal has not happened overnight

both the sides have been talking to each

other for more than a year now

the trump administration was involved

but so were the kuwaitis who have played

a key role

and they were encouraged by the united

states government

to make sure that this deal works out of

course over the last few months jared

kushner

the senior advisor in the white house

also

uh was involved to make sure that this

deal does go through

now why does this deal happen right now

of course a lot of credit has been given

to the trump administration but the

other important factor is that the

saudis

wanted to demonstrate to joe biden who

won the election in november

that his government the saudi regime

rather

is willing to negotiate because most

analysts expect that the joe biden

administration will

adopt a much tougher stance against the

saudis compared

to the trump administration and by

striking this deal

the saudis wanted to show the biden

administration that they are not

holding on to their rigid position but

they are willing to negotiate wherever

it's possible but the other interesting

fact or

a factor to watch out for is that the

other three countries that were part

of this saudi alliance the unit the uae

egypt and bahrain are not very happy

with this deal of course publicly they

have welcomed it

but they were reluctant because of the

trust deficit between the both the sides

and uh the saudis have already announced

that they would be opening up the

borders but we still haven't heard

anything with regards to that from these

three countries so that's something to

watch out for

whether this deal will be only between

saudi arabia and qatar or with the other

three countries which is egypt the uae

and bahrain will also implement it in

its full spirit

samir hashmi reporting there