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DOHA. – Egypt says it will host a meeting of Arab nations that have cut off ties to Qatar. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid says foreign ministers of Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will meet in Cairo tomorrow.

He says the meeting will discuss the future steps in dealing with Qatar, as well as exchange of points of view and evaluating existing international and regional contacts.

Cairo also will play host to a meeting of a United Nations agency monitoring international air travel over a complaint by Qatar about its neighbors cutting off its air routes over the dispute. That meeting is due on Thursday.

The Arab nations have given Qatar a 48-hour extension to meet its demands to end the crisis. Qatar has rejected the demands, saying they violate the nation’s sovereignty. They expected Qatar to respond to their demands later in the day. The new deadline would expire late today or early tomorrow.

Qatar has called the charges baseless and says the demands – including closing Qatar-based al Jazeera TV and ejecting Turkish troops based there – are so severe that they seem intended to be rejected.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have raised the possibility of further sanctions against Qatar if it does not comply with the 13 demands presented to Doha through Kuwait, which is acting as a mediator.

According to a joint statement on Saudi state news agency SPA, the four countries agreed to a request by Kuwait to extend by 48 hours Sunday’s deadline for compliance.

They have not specified what further sanctions they could impose on Doha, but commercial bankers in the region believe that Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini banks might receive official guidance to pull deposits and interbank loans from Qatar.

Qatari officials say the demands are so strict that the four countries never seriously intended them as a negotiating position and see them as being aimed at hobbling Doha’s sovereignty. Qatar says it is interested in negotiating a fair and just solution to ‘any legitimate issues’ of concern to fellow member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which groups Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE.

Qatari envoy in Kuwait is expected to give answers to Arab states’ demands.

Qatar’s Gulf critics accuse Al Jazeera of being a platform for extremists and an agent of interference in their affairs. The network has rejected the accusations and said it will maintain its editorial independence.

Gulf countries have insisted the demands were non-negotiable. The UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, has played down the chances of an escalation, saying “the alternative is not escalation but parting ways”, suggesting Qatar may be forced out of the GCC.

The Western-backed body was formed in 1981 in the wake of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war.

Speaking in Washington last week, the Qatari foreign minister said the GCC was set up to guard against external threats. “When the threat is coming from inside the GCC, there is a suspicion about the sustainability of the organisation,” Sheikh Mohammed told reporters. – News Agencies