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TEHRAN, Oct 23: Qatar’s foreign minister condemned on Tuesday the US-led military strikes on Afghanistan as “unacceptable”, after talks in the Iranian capital.
“The attacks against Afghanistan are unacceptable and we have condemned them. It is our clear position,” Sheikh Hamad bin-Jassem bin-Jabr al-Thani said.
He was speaking to reporters here after a meeting between Qatar’s amir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami.
“What is happening in Afghanistan concerns the Islamic world, and we think that the culprits of the September 11 attacks, no matter who they are, should be tried justly. We think that the Afghan people should not be the victims of these attacks,” the foreign minister said.
On Oct 8, the day after the air strikes began, the amir said that he regretted them.
“We wish it hadn’t come to this,” he said after talks in Paris with French President Jacques Chirac. “We are in principle opposed to wars, opposed to seeing more victims falling.”
Two days later, the foreign minister said Qatar would not let the United States use its airport facilities for its military operation against Afghanistan.
Qatar currently heads the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), after succeeding heavyweight Iran last year. Next month it hosts a key ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation.
The amir and his foreign minister were in Tehran for talks on the Afghan crisis as well as regional issues.
Speaking just ahead of the Qatari delegation’s departure, the minister said the two sides had talked over the Afghan “without discussing the future of that country, because it is up to the Afghan people to decide” their fate.
“For Afghanistan, we do not have precise plans and we think that it is unnecessary to call for a summit of the OIC,” he added.
The emir and his delegation had been welcomed at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport earlier on Tuesday by Iranian Vice President Mohammed Ali Abtahi and Energy Minister Habibollah Bitaraf before heading to the Saad-Abad presidential palace, where they met with President Mohammad Khatami.
State radio said Khatami and the Qatari emir would discuss “bilateral ties, the Afghan crisis and regional issues.”
On Sunday, Qatar, as head of the OIC, called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to put an end to “Israel’s aggressions” against the Palestinians.
In Doha, officials said the amir would visit Riyadh on Sunday for talks on the Afghan and Palestinian crises.
The London-based Al-Hayat daily said on Tuesday the visit was decided after a telephone conversation between Sheikh Hamad and Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah bin Abdel Aziz, following a deterioration of the situation in the Palestinian territories.
‘WAKE-UP CALL: A billionaire Saudi investor said on Tuesday the suicide-hijack attacks on the United States served as a warning for both America and Saudi Arabia to examine policies which help to create a “breeding ground” for terrorism.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, involved in a spat with New York’s mayor over US Middle East policy, said he believed Washington had begun to heed Arab calls to take a less one-sided approach to the region, where perceived US bias in favour of Israel feeds anti-American sentiment among Arabs.
In an interview, the prince, who still describes himself as pro-American, said Riyadh also had to do its part because of the role some Saudis played in the September 11 hijacked airliner attacks.
“What took place was a wake-up call no doubt for America to help resolve this Middle East situation that is a breeding ground for extremism and terrorism,” he said.
“On the other hand it was a wake-up call for Saudi Arabia to look at many of the problems which we have internally, no doubt about that.”
The FBI believes that many of the 19 hijackers who slammed commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon were Saudis, mainly from the southern Asir province.
But Saudi officials say so far they have no conclusive evidence that any of their citizens were involved—AFP/Reuters
