New York: Qatar's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador  Sheikha Alia Ahmed bin Saif Al-Thani described the concession of the siege countries to the demands they had stipulated to resolve the Gulf crisis as an insincere face-saving approach to resolve the crisis.

In statements published Thursday in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, she said that there could be no direct negotiations until the siege countries ended their economic siege on Qatar, which she described as an "illegal siege causing deep harm".

The Ambassador pointed out that the retreat from these 13 demands and replacing them with six principles come in response to international pressure on the four countries as a result of the submission of these demands which received a lot of criticism. This is just a face-saving attempt and unfortunately does not indicate good faith or flexibility, she added.

The New York Times described the 13 demands that the four siege countries presented to Qatar as "unrealistic", adding that Qatar denied the accusations against it and considered them as front to the real goal of the siege countries to infringe on Qatari sovereignty.

The newspaper said that much of the dispute revolves around Al Jazeera, which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called its closure request as an "unacceptable attack on freedom of expression and opinion."

In this regard, The New York Times quoted the envoy as saying "We are proud of hosting Al Jazeera".

The New York Times pointed out that Qatar has already addressed the UN Secretary-General on the crisis to clarify the siege countries' violations of the UN Charter and the international human rights law, as well as what resulted from the measures they have taken against the State of Qatar, including human rights violations and unfortunate humanitarian cases.

Rhe Ambassador shared with the newspaper documents containing reports of the National Human Rights Committee in Qatar containing details of hundreds of complaints about the impacts of the siege as well as the arbitrary separation of families, the inability of students to complete the school year and enormous losses for Qatari businessmen in the siege countries.

The paper added that the committee's report also accused the siege countries of having threatened severe punishment to any citizen deemed friendly to Qatar. "Just wearing a Barcelona or  Paris St.-Germain T-shirt out of sympathy is enough for a person to receive severe punishment," it said

For its part, The Wall Street Journal published a report today entitled "Qatar's Critics Scale Back Demands in Diplomatic Bid" in which it said that the four Arab nations have revised and curtailed their list of demands for Doha.

The newspaper added that these countries retreated from demanding the closure of Al Jazeera network or expulsing of people considered to be a source of problems.

It also published  Sheikha Alia's response, in which she described the retreat of the siege countries as a response to the pressures due to its irrational demands.