The story: Gathering under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), high-ranking representatives from Bahrain and Qatar have met in Saudi Arabia. The rare sessions are seen as an apparent effort to normalize relations. While the Arab Quartet (Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) reconciled with Qatar in 2021, some unresolved issues have prevented a full rapprochement between neighbors Bahrain and Qatar. 

The coverage: Qatar’s Al-Raya reported on Feb. 7 that top diplomats from Doha and Manama had met in Riyadh to “set the necessary procedures and mechanisms to launch bilateral talks.” It added that the effort was “in accordance” with the statement issued at the Jan. 2021 GCC summit in Saudi Arabia, which saw the Arab Quartet and Qatar end the rift that erupted in 2017. 

• Prominent Emirati academic Abdulkhaleq Abdulla expressed some optimism at the meeting between the Bahraini and Qatari chief diplomats.
  
  
• However, Qatari journalist Mesfer Sa’ad Al-Kaabi suggested that the “rift” between the two neighbors “is deep and will never be resolved.”
  
  
• Speaking to Dubai-based Al-Hurra, some political analysts have claimed that the Bahraini-Qatari talks having taken place in Riyadh is significant because it demonstrates...