Kebijakan Qatar Menormalisasi Hubungan Diplomatik dengan Iran pada Tahun 2017

This study aims to explain the reasons behind Qatar's foreign policy in normalizing diplomatic relations with Iran in the midst of a diplomatic crisis with the GCC countries rather than comply to GCC demands. This policy is a Qatar’s counteraction to respond to the pressures and demands from GCC countries. In this diplomatic crisis, Qatar is the actor who got the most negative impacts socially, economically, and politically. In addition, Qatar also received negative responses and impacts from their action in normalizing diplomatic relations with Iran which then prolonged the diplomatic crisis with the GCC countries until the end of 2020. This study is analyzed using constructivism with the concept of identity and interest. The research method is qualitative with explanative type and utilizes secondary data. Based on the concept, this study found that there is change in identity that Qatar has experienced with the GCC countries and Iran through how Qatar perceives those countries. Qatar no longer perceives Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and UAE as “friends”. On the other hand, Qatar’s identification to Iran is getting positive, so that Qatar perceives Iran as a part of “the self”. This identity change then caused the shift of Qatar’s interest, which is before the diplomatic crisis Qatar’s interests were more into GCC countries then after the crisis shifted to Iran, which then became the reasons behind this normalization