The Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulraham Al-Thani, said his country “does not have a war with Israel”, Israeli media outlets have reported.

The Gulf state leader made the comments following a speech in Singapore on Friday but while speculation is in the air that a Saudi-Israel accord is on the cards, he said that Qatar had not hear anything “officially” about any talks.

Qatar is part the Gulf Co-operation Council, whose members Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates established diplomatic ties with Israel with the Abraham Accords three years ago.

Although Qatar does not have diplomatic links with Israel, it allowed Israeli soccer fans to fly from Tel Aviv for the World Cup it hosted last year.

The Gulf state has played a significant role in the region by providing extensive economic aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

Al-Thani was quoted by the Times of Israel as saying: “At the end of the day, we don’t have a war with Israel, the Israelis have an occupation over the Palestinians.”

The best framework to bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he suggested, was the 2002 Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative.

That plan offered diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab states in return for Israeli withdrawal for territories it acquired in the Six-Day War and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Meanwhile, the week before last United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that Israel would have to make concessions to the Palestinians if it wanted a deal with the Saudis.

He told Israel’s visiting Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer that Israel would be “misreading the situation” if it did not think it would have to make concessions, JNS reported.