US-Gulf summit hangs in the balance

President Trump said in April that a postponed meeting with Gulf leaders would go ahead in September. But will it happen?

The US president's idea is that the heads of state of the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council should meet at Camp David in September. One of the aims would be to find a solution to the dispute between Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the one side, and Qatar on the other. That's assuming there's no reconciliation before then. Since June 2017, a Saudi-led group of states has imposed an economic and diplomatic blockade on Qatar. A fairly safe assumption is that there won't have been a solution by September. In which case it's hard to imagine Saudi and UAE leaders being willing to sit down with the emir of Qatar. For its part, Qatar has said it's happy to open talks on the issue. All the whil