In a tweet, she said Qatar hosts the US Central Command, which is a base of the Global Coalition against Daesh and all other terrorist groups.
Giving a fitting reply to the accusers, Sheikha Alia listed her defence of Qatar as follows:
•The State of Qatar combats the core causes of the phenomenon of terrorism and violent extremism through supporting educational projects, enhancing the values of dialogue and religious tolerance, propagating peace and providing work opportunities for the youth.
• Qatar took the initiative of providing educational opportunities for 7mn children around the world within humanitarian and developmental programmes, with a view to protecting them against the exploitation of terrorist and violent groups, in addition to providing 300,000 jobs for the youth in North African countries through a Qatari initiative concerned with the well-being of the youth.
• Qatar never allows persons who support terrorism to stay in or pass through its territories. Qatari financial institutions and banks never provide any platform for the remittance of funds to terrorists.
•The countries that accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism are listed on top of those convicted of supporting and funding terrorism and violent extremism. Moreover, some time ago financial institutions and nationals of the blockading countries were convicted of funding terror organisations and terror operations around the world.
•Qatar is a founding member of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), which is meant to protect local communities against violent extremism. It contributed $5mn to the fund, and it is an active international member in the efforts of fighting terrorism and violent extremism.
*The successful mediations carried out by Qatar in several crises in the region during the past few years is solid evidence of its effective contribution to the security, peace and stability in the region and the world.
She said the siege of Qatar is meant to undermine its sovereignty rather than fight terrorism.
In support, she presented the following arguments:
*All the measures taken by blockading countries against Qatar were built on fabrications that were started by hacking the website of the official Qatar News Agency and attributing to His Highness the Emir of Qatar fabricated statements, which was followed by attacking Qatar through false news and orchestrated smearing media campaign.
•The real motives of the blockade and severing diplomatic relations with Qatar include undermining its sovereignty, change its foreign policy, interfering in its internal affairs and silencing the voices critical of the policies of the blockading countries and not to fight terrorism and violent extremism.
•The blockade imposed on Qatar has led to a humanitarian crisis for many mixed Gulf families, involving about 12,000 people including husbands, wives and children who were forcibly separated from each other in stark violation of the international humanitarian law.
•The blockading countries took these unilateral and arbitrary measures against Qatar without referring to the conflict-solving mechanism agreed upon in Riyadh in 2014 and the basics of the relations between sovereign countries, let alone the values of good geographical neighbourliness and common historical ties.
•The composition of the impossible demands of the blockading countries was made under international pressure and with a motive to be rejected by Qatar, although Doha is dealing positively with the mediation led by HH the Emir of Kuwait with the support of the United States, the international community and all the countries of the world that support peace, security and stability in the Gulf region.
•The demands of the blockading countries are a blunt violation of the sovereignty of the State of Qatar and press and speech freedoms. They also contradict the international law and aim to undermine rather than enhance the international efforts to fight terrorism.
•The State of Qatar prefers to have cordial relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran based on mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs of each other, exactly in line with the decision taken by the leaders of GCC in their last two summits.
Shiekha Alia
The accusations levelled by Saudi Arabia and its allies that Qatar supports terrorism are completely false, devoid of any proof and absurd, Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Sheikha Alia Ahmed bin Saif al-Thani yesterday said.
