FNA - A quartet of Arab nations announced that it has received Qatar's response to their demands for ending a diplomatic crisis, as Doha stressed that the demands by Saudi Arabia and its allies were impossible to meet.

"The four countries have received the Qatari response via Kuwait before the end of the additional deadline, which came at the request of HH Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, the Emir of Kuwait," Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt said in a joint statement on Wednesday, the Saudi News Agency reported.


"Qatar will receive a reply in due time," the statement added.


Heads of intelligence from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain held a meeting in Cairo on Tuesday, Egyptian state news agency MENA reported.


MENA, citing "informed sources", did not provide details of the meeting, which took place one day before foreign ministers from the four countries were due to meet to discuss the Persian Gulf dispute.


Meanwhile, delegates from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE are due to meet in Egypt Wednesday to discuss the ongoing diplomatic crisis which started about a month ago.


Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar early June, and suspended air and sea communication one week after the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, accusing Doha of supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing the situation in the Middle East.


After more than two weeks, the Saudi-led bloc gave Qatar a 10 days to comply with 13 demands, which included shutting down the Al-Jazeera Media Network, closing a Turkish military base and scaling down ties with Iran.


The deadline to comply with the demands ended on Sunday, but the Persian Gulf States and Egypt granted Doha another 48 hours before the group would consider imposing further sanctions.


Qatar's Foreign Minister arrived in Kuwait on Monday to hand over the Doha's response to the 13 demands from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE.


Through Kuwait, which has been acting as intermediary, Qatar officially responded to the new deadline, but what precisely was communicated has not yet been revealed.


Qatar had announced that Doha will not meet any of the 13 demands made by Saudi Arabia and its allies, offering instead "a proper condition for a dialogue" to resolve the [Persian] Gulf crisis, but Riyadh reiterated that its demands to Qatar to end the stand-off in the [Persian] Gulf were "non-negotiable".


The split among the Arab states erupted after US President Donald Trump visited Riyadh where he accused Iran of "destabilizing interventions" in Arab lands.