Adel Al-Jubeir
Adel Al-JubeirReuters

Saudi Arabia declared Sunday it would keep pressuring Qatar until demands by a bloc of Arab states are met.

“We will continue to take action and we will maintain our position until Qatar responds,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said, speaking alongside his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the Saudi city of Jeddah, according to AFP.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt all severed relations with Qatar in June over allegations that it supports terrorism. Qatar denies the charges.

They later placed dozens of figures linked to the country on blacklists, including Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the spiritual leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The four boycotting countries delivered 13 demands to ending the crisis, including shutting the Al-Jazeera network, downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran and closing a Turkish military base.

Qatar “must respond to these requests in order to open a new page,” Jubeir said on Sunday.

The Saudi clarification came after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in a bid to mediate.

On Wednesday, the President spoke with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and called for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis between Qatar and other Arab states.

A day later, Trump and the emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, held a telephone call in which Trump stressed the importance of unity in fighting terrorism.

The Saudi and Qatari rulers spoke by phone on Saturday, raising hope for talks, AFP reported.

But Riyadh later suspended the dialogue, accusing Doha of distorting facts by wrongly implying that Saudi Arabia had initiated the outreach.