Qatar re-evaluates key mediator role in Middle East conflict

[Pelican Press 0]

Qatar re-evaluates key mediator role in Middle East conflict

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is greeted by Qatari officials upon his arrival in Doha, Qatar, Friday Oct. 13, 2023.

Jacquelyn Martin | Reuters

Qatar is reconsidering its role as cease-***** broker between ******* and ************ militant group ******, the Gulf state’s prime minister said, expressing concerns that Doha’s mediation has been subject to “political exploitation.”

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, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani “lamented the political exploitation by some politicians with narrow interests, marketing their electoral campaigns through the defamation of Qatar’s role.”

He did not reference any politicians or states by name, but noted that Doha has observed the “misuse” of its mediation and “its employment for narrow political interests,” stressing that Qatar will undertake a “comprehensive evaluation” of its diplomatic position without indicating a timeline.

Earlier this week, U.S. Congressman for Maryland, Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) had

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urging Qatar to “apply pressure on ****** to accept a reasonable deal” for a temporary truce in exchange for the return of captives abducted by the ************ group during its ******* ******* of Oct. 7.

Since October, the ******-governed Gaza Strip has been ravaged by a retaliatory war campaign carried out by *******.

“****** has also sought to use its intermediary Qatar – which has long helped finance, back, and house the ********** organization – to exact greater concessions from *******. Instead, Qatar needs to make it clear to ****** that there will be repercussions if it continues to block progress toward releasing the hostages and establishing a temporary ceasefire,” Hoyer said. 

“If Qatar fails to apply this pressure, the ******* States must reevaluate its relationship with Qatar.”

Qatar’s Embassy in Washington

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with a statement that Doha’s capacity as mediator “exists only because we were asked by the ******* States in 2012 to play this role,” adding that “blaming and threatening the mediator is not constructive, especially when the target is a friend and a Major Non-NATO Ally that presently hosts 10,000 U.S. troops and America’s largest military presence in the Middle East.”

Alongside the U.S. and Egypt, Qatar has been a critical diplomatic component of *******’s negotiations with ****** since October, helping clinch a brief cease-***** between Nov. 24 and 30 and the release of more than a hundred hostages. Yet Qatar’s relationship with ****** has faced intense scrutiny — ****** set up its political bureau in the Gulf nation in the wake of the ***** Spring uprisings of 2011, and the ************ militant group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh resides in Qatar. Doha denies sponsoring ******.

Qatar’s potential withdrawal from negotiations would come at a watershed moment in Middle East tensions, which were exacerbated over the weekend by the first direct ******* from Iranian territory against *******. On Saturday night, Tehran launched over 300 drones and missiles at *******, whose military claims to have eliminated 99% of these threats with support from its international allies.

Iran — which backs ******, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi and the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad, all inimical to ******* — has said that the Saturday operation marked the end of its response to an ******** strike that ******* several commanders at an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria.

Arrested between retribution and urged to show restraint by international allies, ******* has vowed to “exact a price” for the Iranian offensive, but has yet to communicate its next steps.

Markets are following the developments of the conflict, which could come to envelop the broader Middle East region and have acute ramifications for oil prices and international trade. Already, Houthi maritime attacks have delayed or disrupted commercial transit through the Red Sea.

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