Saudi Arabia to Expel All Qatari Citizens With Exception of Pilgrims Amid Row

Riyadh, after severing diplomatic ties with Doha, said in statement on Monday that it ordered all Qatari nationals to leave its territory within the next two weeks and banned all Qataris from entering the country with the exception of pilgrims allowed to visit the country for religious purposes.

CAIRO (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, Saudi Arabia alongside Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar amid the row over the latter’s alleged support for Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist movement, which is outlawed in Russia and many other countries.

"Unfortunately, all Qatari citizens are prohibited from visiting Saudi Arabia and from transiting through the country due to the security concerns. The residents and people, who are temporarily on the territory of Saudi Arabia, have 14 days to leave the country," the government's statement read, as quoted by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

The row between the countries intensified one week after the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, when the Qatari news agency posted a speech supporting the building relations with Iran on behalf of the country's emir. 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.