The Gulf state has been a vocal supporter for a political and peaceful settlement in Syria while maintaining its refusal to normalise relations with the Assad regime.
Qatar has announced a new $75m contribution to support humanitarian efforts in war-torn Syria.
Qatar’s Minister of State for International Cooperation Lolwah Al Khater announced the latest Qatari contribution during a conference in Brussels on Monday, and highlighted the dire humanitarian situation in Syria caused by the Bashar Al Assad regime.
Speaking at the ‘Supporting the future of Syria and the region’ conference, Al Khater underlined the “policies that prolonged the conflict on a no-winner, no-loser basis”.
“She pointed out that this continued to the present day with entrenched verbal positions that reality has surpassed, making the Syrian issue a seasonal topic without genuine and effective international and regional efforts to find practical and fundamental solutions,” the Qatari foreign ministry said, citing Al Khater .
The Qatari official noted that the Syrian crisis “cannot be compared to other conflicts”, and emphasised the importance of regional and international consensus for “a decisive political settlement”.
“The collective imagination transcends the current moment to envision a different future for Syria, one where refugees return to their homeland safely without retribution, where the unity and territorial integrity of Syria are preserved,” Al Khater added.
Qatar has been a vocal supporter for a political and peaceful settlement in Syria while maintaining its staunch refusal to normalise with the Assad regime.
The Gulf state had closed its embassy in Syria in 2011 in response to Assad’s brutal crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protests, and was the first to establish an embassy for the Syrian opposition in its capital Doha.
Qatar’s solid stance was highlighted last year amid a wave of regional normalisation with the Assad regime, ahead of the Arab League’s decision to reinstate Syria following more than a decade of isolation.
The 22-member bloc had suspended Syria’s membership in 2011 as a response to Assad’s crimes against civilians, which had plunged the country into war and caused a major refugee crisis.
Syrian activists had described the move as a “betrayal” to the hundreds of thousands of people killed, displaced, tortured and detained by the regime.
Last year, during the Arab League summit in Jeddah, Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani left the meeting ahead of Assad’s speech. It was the Syrian ruler’s first such appearance since Damascus was reinstated into the bloc.
In addition to the shelling of civilians, the Assad regime has carried out horrifying methods of torture, some of which were exposed in 2014 through the Caesar photographs.
In June 2023, Qatar voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly resolution to create an independent body that investigates the fate of thousands of people who remain missing in Syria since the war broke out in 2011.
Qatar and Kuwait were the only two countries that voted in favour of the resolution. Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates abstained from the vote.
The Assad regime has killed 231,278 Syrian civilians, including 15,334 who died as a result of torture, since the beginning of the uprising, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).
At least 156,757 others were subjected to forced disappearance by the regime.
The war caused the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 12 million Syrians forcibly displaced in the region, according to the United Nations.
