Qatar hands Syrian embassy to opposition National Coalition

AFP/Beirut

Qatar has handed the Syrian embassy building in Doha to the National Coalition, Syria’s main opposition group, a statement said yesterday.

“Qatar has decided to hand over the Syrian embassy building in Doha to Nizar al-Haraki after his appointment as ambassador to Doha for the National Coalition,” the coalition statement said.

“Qatar has acted faster than the Friends of Syria coalition,” the opposition statement said, in reference to a string of Western and Arab states, along with Turkey, which support the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“The flag of the revolution will be raised above the building,” the Syrian National Coalition added.

 “We regard this step as very positive. We hope other friendly countries will do the same,” Walid al-Bunni, a spokesman for the coalition, said.

Speaking to AFP by phone, Haraki said the Qatari authorities had accepted his appointment.

“A formal decision has been made to accept my appointment as ambassador,” he said.

“I will start work along with two other diplomats,” said Haraki.

“Depending on whether they support the revolution, we will decide which former embassy staff members we will keep, and who we will lay off.”

Haraki, 51, hails from Daraa in southern Syria, the cradle of the uprising - which started in March 2011 - against the regime of Assad.

The National Coalition was formed in Doha on November 11.

A day later, Qatar and other Gulf countries recognised the group as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

And a week after that, the European Union followed suit and recognised the coalition.

The Coalition in November named ambassadors to Paris and London but neither France nor Britain have yet handed over embassy buildings to the opposition.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on the Security Council to overcome its paralysis and take “meaningful” action to stop the bloodshed in Syria where nearly 70,000 people have died.

“It is essential for the Security Council to overcome the deadlock and find the unity that will make meaningful action possible,” he said at the Organisation of American States in Washington.

Ban said that while the 15-member Council remains paralysed and Syria politically polarised, the deaths and human rights violations are mounting.

“It’s long past time we resolved this conflict,” he said, adding that the international community must keep pushing for a political solution despite the difficulties.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said on Tuesday that almost 70,000 people have died in the conflict, which is now nearly two years old.

Russia and China have vetoed three Western-drafted resolutions which would simply have threatened sanctions.