The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani and US Secretary of State John Kerry at the Friends of Syria Foreign Ministers Meeting in Doha yesterday.
DOHA: World powers supporting the Syrian opposition yesterday decided to take “secret steps” to change the balance on the battlefield, following calls for stepping up military aid to rebel fighters.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting of Friends of Syria foreign ministers here, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani said that the meeting had taken “a secret decision about practical measures to change the situation on the ground in Syria”.
In their final communique, the ministers agreed to “provide urgently all the necessary material and equipment to the opposition on the ground, each country in its own way in order to enable them to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies and protect the Syrian people.
They demanded that Iran and Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah stop supporting President Bashar Al Assad’s regime.
A peaceful end “cannot be reached unless a balance on the ground is achieved, in order to force the regime to sit down to talks,” the Prime Minister told the meeting.
He added that use of force may be necessary to achieve this goal.
Getting arms and using them could be the only way to achieve peace, especially in the Syrian case,” said the Prime Minister. “We are not against dialogue and peaceful settlement; and definitely we support the convention of Geneva II conference to bring about a peaceful transfer of power in Syria through the formation of a fully authorised transitional government in which Bashar Al Assad and his associates whose hands were stained with blood cannot participate”, he added.
He said the Syrian regime would not have been able to easily carry on the bloodbath, it if were not supported by “very well-known regional and international powers.”
“The most blunt example of that is the interference of Hezbollah, which imposes a huge responsibility on the Lebanese government to take appropriate actions to stop any interference from Lebanon in the conflict raging in Syria. It is extremely horrifying to hear the news and see evidence about the regime’s unscrupulous use of chemical weapons against its own people,” said the Prime Minister.
Later talking to the media, the Prime Minister defended Qatar’s support to the Hezbollah during its war with Israel in 2006, saying, “The Qatari stand at that time was clear. Hezbollah was defending Lebanese territory. Now the situation is different. They are not defending their territory. They are interfering in the Syrian issue and committing crimes against the Syrian people.”
He said relations between Qatar and Iran were good and will continue to be so.
“There is difference between Doha and Tehran on the Syrian issue. The Iranian intervention will destabilise the region,” said the Prime Minister.
Ministers from Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States attended the talks.
Washington and Doha called for increasing military aid to end what US Secretary of State John Kerry called an “imbalance” in Assad’s favour.
Kerry said the US remained committed to a peace plan that includes a conference in Geneva and a transitional government picked both by Assad and the opposition.
But he said the rebels need more support “for the purpose of being able to get to Geneva and to be able to address the imbalance on the ground”.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said London had taken “no decision” to arm the rebels.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the ministers demanded that predominantly Shia Iran and Hezbollah stop meddling in the war by supporting Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam.
“We have demanded that Iran and Hezbollah end their intervention in the conflict,” said Fabius.
“We are fully against the internationalisation of the conflict,” he told reporters.
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