The Heir Apparent H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani addressing a conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Doha yesterday.
DOHA: The Heir Apparent HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani yesterday stressed the need to support the people of Syria in their struggle for freedom and dignity.
He said one could not live in isolation, and so backing the people of Syria, who have risen in rebellion, did not amount to interfering in Syria’s internal affairs or violating its sovereignty.
The Heir Apparent opened a conference titled ‘Geostrategic Transformations within the Context of Arab Revolutions’ last evening, and said while referring to the Syrian people in his inaugural address: “We need to cooperate (with them)”.
About the GCC region, he said without mincing words: “We are not interested in seeing the region destabilised. We are not interested in a war”. Any disagreement must be resolved through dialogue, the Heir Apparent said, without naming Iran.
He rejected the idea of an external role in the Arab revolutions and said the Arab people rose in rebellion against the regimes in their respective countries to assert their basic rights to food, shelter and dignity.
So anyone who thinks that there are external hands behind the Arab Spring is mistaken, the Heir Apparent said amid applause.
“Arab people didn’t revolt for strategic reasons but for basic needs like bread and dignity and for their rights as citizens.”
Any superpower is capable of influencing any country in the world but it can in no way create public revolt in a country, he said. People revolt when they have nothing concrete in sight as solutions to their woes. “They wouldn’t rebel if there is even a flicker of hope.” The Heir Apparent said that anyone who doesn’t take into account the fact that events like the 2006 war against Israel, the situation as regards Palestine, occupation of Iraq and the Judaisation of Jerusalem have made Arabs frustrated over time is politically blind.
Arab countries will be forced to preserve their sovereignty after the revolutions and pay more attention to basic issues like the dignity and freedoms of people, he said, adding that Palestine was an issue close to the heart of every Arab.
One of the most important outcomes of the Arab Spring had been that people had become more aware of their problems and needs, he said.
About Palestine, the Heir Apparent said he welcomed the UN resolution but added that the world body needed to do much more. He took a dig at the world community as well and said that during the Arab Spring they had intervened only in Libya. “The reasons for this I don’t want to talk about.”
In the end, he warned the governments that have emerged in the Arab Spring countries not to shun democracy, and make democratic values the basis of their rule. The Peninsula
