Saudi Arabia says Qatar boycott to remain in place

They also ordered Qatari citizens to leave their territories and took various steps against Qatari firms and financial institutions.

The crisis has raised concerns of growing instability in the region, home to some of the world’s largest energy exporters and key Western allies who host US military bases.

Energy-rich Qatar has been defiant throughout the crisis, insisting it can weather action taken against it.

On Tuesday it even announced a major boost in planned natural gas output, with Qatar Petroleum saying it would increase production to 100 million tonnes a year by 2024, up 30 percent from current levels.

– ‘Economic and financial risks’ –

Qatar is the world’s leading producer of liquefied natural gas.

Its energy riches have transformed Qatar into one of the world’s wealthiest countries, a major international investor and a regional player that will host the 2022 football World Cup.

Concern has been growing, however, that a drawn-out crisis could have an economic impact.

Moody’s said it was changing its credit rating outlook for Qatar to negative from stable, citing “the economic and financial risks arising from the ongoing dispute”.

“The likelihood of a prolonged period of uncertainty extending into 2018 has increased and a quick resolution of the dispute is unlikely over the next few months,” the agency said.

Some critics of Qatar have accused it of links to extremist organisations including the Islamic State group, Al-Qaeda and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

But a British think-tank said Wednesday that foreign funding for Islamist extremism in Britain mostly originates from Saudi Arabia.

“While entities from across the Gulf and Iran have been guilty of advancing extremism, those in Saudi Arabia are undoubtedly at the top of the list,” Tom Wilson, a fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a hawkish London-based foreign policy think-tank, said in a statement.

In a statement to the BBC, the Saudi embassy in London said the claims were “categorically false”.