First Qatar to Saudi flight lands after thaw
Qatar-Saudi flights resumed on Monday as the neighbours normalise ties under a landmark agreement that ended a bitter three-year rift and allows families to reunite. Saudi Arabia and its allies the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt in June 2017 slapped a blockade on Qatar that included closing airspace to the country over claims it backed Islamist groups and was too close to Iran -- charges Doha has always denied. The quartet agreed to lift the restrictions at a Gulf Cooperation Council summit last week in the Saudi desert city of Al-Ula, after a flurry of diplomatic activity by outgoing US President Donald Trump's administration. The first commercial flight between Qatar and Saudi Arabia in three and a half years, a Qatar Airways service to Riyadh, took off from windswept Doha airport around 1100 GMT and touched down around 1200 GMT.<br/>
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First Qatar to Saudi flight lands after thaw
Qatar-Saudi flights resumed on Monday as the neighbours normalise ties under a landmark agreement that ended a bitter three-year rift and allows families to reunite. Saudi Arabia and its allies the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt in June 2017 slapped a blockade on Qatar that included closing airspace to the country over claims it backed Islamist groups and was too close to Iran -- charges Doha has always denied. The quartet agreed to lift the restrictions at a Gulf Cooperation Council summit last week in the Saudi desert city of Al-Ula, after a flurry of diplomatic activity by outgoing US President Donald Trump's administration. The first commercial flight between Qatar and Saudi Arabia in three and a half years, a Qatar Airways service to Riyadh, took off from windswept Doha airport around 1100 GMT and touched down around 1200 GMT.<br/>
