No-Fly Zone: UAE's Etihad Airways Suspends Flights to Qatar Amid Diplomatic Row

Etihad Airways, the national airline carrier of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will suspend all flights to and from Qatar on Tuesday, a decision which comes on the heels of Abu Dhabi officially cutting off diplomatic relations with Doha, the airline’s spokesperson told Sputnik Monday.

DUBAI (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, the UAE severed ties with Qatar, citing its alleged support of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist movement, which is outlawed in Russia and many other countries.

"The airline will suspend flights to Qatar and from Qatar from Tuesday’s morning," the Etihad Airways’ spokesperson said in statement.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt also cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar and suspended air and sea communication one week after the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, when the Qatari news agency posted a speech on behalf of the country's emir in support of building relations with Iran. Afterwards, the official representative of the Qatari Foreign Ministry said that the agency's site was hacked and the emir's speech was published by hackers and had nothing to do with the Qatari leader.

However, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Manama considered this refutation to be unconvincing and continued to insist that the words about the normalization of relations with Iran really belonged to the emir.

The relations between Iran and the Arab states of Persian Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, are strained due to the differences of positions on a range of regional conflicts.