Qatar faces hostile media campaign, particularly in US: FM

Doha: Qatar has been targeted by a hostile campaign, particularly in the US media, Foreign Minister said.

"There is a hostile media campaign against the state of Qatar, which we will confront," Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told reporters, adding that the campaign was "particularly in the United States".

"It is surprising that during the past five weeks, there were 13 opinion articles focused on Qatar" in US media, and that the day the Qatari state news agency QNA was "hacked, a conference on Qatar convened without us attending while the authors of those articles were there," he said.

"The hacking took place the same evening" as the conference, he said. "Is this a coincidence?"

"Qatar is always in favour of maintaining strong and brotherly relations with GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries," Foreign Minister said.

"In Riyadh we had very positive discussions about the relationship between Gulf countries," he added, referring to talks in the Saudi capital last week during a visit by US President Donald Trump.

The four-hour cyber attack after midnight Tuesday caused ripples across the Middle East because of the content of the stories, including remarks on "tensions" with the US administration, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and relations with Iran.

Sheikh Mohammed reiterated that the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani had made no such remarks and vowed that investigators assigned to look into the hacking would issue a transparent report. He expressed surprise that Gulf media had continued to report the comments attributed to the Emir despite the denial.

He said no Gulf Arab country has contacted Doha about the Emir's purported remarks, and Qatar sought good ties with all Gulf Arab states.