Qatar and Iran support a political solution in Syria

Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Atia said during his visit to Tehran that the two countries agree that a political solution is the way out of the crisis in Syria, which approached its third year, leaving more than 140 fatalities, and millions of refugees and displaced.

In a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Mohamed Jawad Zarif in Tehran Thursday, The Qatari minister affirmed that the crisis started when the Syrian regime confronted the peaceful pro-democracy Syrian protesters with force.

Al-Atia pointed out that there are different views in Tehran and Qatar on the Syrian crisis, despite the existence of common grounds.

Qatar’s stance on Syria stands at odds with that of Iran. While Tehran is an ardent supporter of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, Doha is one of the main backers of the Arab Spring.

Prior to heading to Iran, the Qatari minister criticized the failure of the UN Security Council to resolve the worsening Syrian crisis, accusing the international community of “selectiveness” in dealing with humanitarian issues.

“The Security Council deemed the violation of international human rights law as a pretext to apply the seventh chapter of the UN Charter in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but it failed to do so in Syria,” Al-Atia said during the inauguration of a conference at Qatar University titled: “The Syrian Crisis and International Law”.

Al-Atia condemned the international community’s “double-standards” towards humanitarian crises in the world. For instance, he said, the international community ended the Ukrainian crisis in record time, whereas the Syrian crisis remained unresolved for three years.