The invitation was passed on to the Qatari emir by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, who is currently on an official visit to Qatar, Al Ekhbariya said on Monday.
Last month, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held talks with the Saudi foreign minister in Qatar. Al Saud’s visit to Qatar became the first such official visit since Saudi Arabia signed an agreement on normalizing relations with Doha in January 2021.
The ties were severed in mid-2017 amid claims that Qatar supported terrorism in the region and accusations of growing closer with Iran. Doha has repeatedly dismissed the allegations.
At the end of February, Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held a telephone conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In January, a reconciliation agreement was signed with Qatar at the Saudi-hosted 41st summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the three-and-a-half-year-long sea, air and land blockade of Qatar was lifted.
The summit also featured Jared Kushner - a senior advisor to former US President Donald Trump, who was tasked with mediating reconciliation between the Gulf states before Trump's tenure in office ended. The Trump administration maintained a good relationship with both Qatar and Saudi Arabia, despite the rift between the two.
Qatar had been under a diplomatic and economic blockade for more than three years. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt had issued the 13-item ultimatum that required Doha to scale down the relations with Iran, to close a Qatari-based Turkish military base, to shut down the Al Jazeera television network and to stop meddling in neighbors' domestic affairs.
Doha insisted that the neighbors' discontent with its economic successes was behind their hostile policies.
