Qatar offers proposal during Chad talks in a bid to resolve conflict

A Chadian source with knowledge on the talks told Doha News that meetings continue to take place and a general session scheduled for Wednesday.

Qatar has provided Chadian sides in Doha with a proposal to resolve the ongoing conflict between all parties, the Gulf State’s envoy told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

Doha is hosting conflict resolution talks between warring Chadian sides with the hopes of paving the way for long-promised “free and transparent” elections. The dialogue kicked off on Sunday following a delay.

Speaking to the Qatar-based broadcaster, Qatar’s Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Counterterrorism and Mediation in Conflict Resolution Dr Mutlaq bin Majed Al Qahtani, said that the proposal had been submitted to the sides.

Whilst Al Qahtani did not disclose further information on the proposal, it is a significant development in the Doha-facilitated talks following an apparent stalemate. The Qatari official also said that they are awaiting a response from the Chadian sides.

Chad political dialogue kicks off in Qatar following delay

A Chadian source with knowledge on the talks told Doha News that meetings continue to take place and a general session scheduled for Wednesday.

Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani had agreed to host the talks in the Gulf state in an effort to support to all Chadian sides in reaching a political resolution.

The head of Chad’s Chad’s Transitional Military Council, Mahamat Idriss Deby, hoped that the talks would lead to an agreement by all sides over a new constitution.

“The situation in Chad is very serious, we have to deliver this,” African Union Commission head Moussa Faki Mahamat said during his opening remarks on Sunday.

Libyan Foreign Affairs Najla El Mangoush, and Mahamat Zene Cherif, Chad’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration and Chadians Abroad were also in attendance.

Deby had assumed power after his father and former President Idriss Deby, was killed amidst fighting between government and rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) on 20 April, 2021.

According to AFP, the Libya-based group’s, FACT, leader Mahamat Mahdi Ali was not at the talks.

A long history of mediation

The talks in Qatar come as part of its long history of mediation and conflict resolution in different parts of the world.

Qatar had previously sponsored the signing of the “Doha Accord”—also known as the “Darfur agreement”, between Khartoum and N’Djamena in 2009. The two countries had accused one another of supporting rebel attacks inside their territories.

In 2020, it hosted direct talks between the Taliban and the US in an effort to end decades of war in Afghanistan. Those negotiations led to the signing of the Doha agreement, under which the Us placed 1 May, 2021, as the deadline for the conditional withdrawal of troops.

The deadline was later revised by US President Joe Biden to 31 August.

During the same year, Qatar hosted direct talks between the Taliban and Afghan government at the time, but they collapsed as the latter continued to militarily advance in different provincial capitals before capturing Kabul on 15 August.

More recently, Qatar has been mediating between the US and Iran in an effort to restore the 2015 nuclear accord at the two countries’ request.

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