Qatar wants the Palestinian Authority (PA) to be the single agency for the Palestinians to take care of Gaza and the West Bank, HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani has said. In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, he said there were ongoing talks between all the Palestinian factions, including the Fatah and the PA, in order to make sure that this is a technocratic committee, it’s apolitical.“It will take care of Gaza in this transition period, and it will be linked somehow to the Palestinian Authority, and once the reforms are in place, the Palestinian Authority should take over the governance in Gaza and the West Bank together.”Regarding the role that the international forces in Gaza should play, HE Sheikh Mohammed observed that “there should be a defined mandate”, and Qatar is working together with the US in order to define that mandate. The role of the international forces should be “securing the Palestinians and the Israelis don’t pose a threat to each other”. At the outset, HE the Prime Minister stated that the “Gaza ceasefire is a very complex deal”. And despite the ceasefire - we had even in the previous ceasefire, which was in January - we had a lot of violations and a lot of Palestinians being killed during that ceasefire.Observing that the violations are happening everyday, he said that Qatar, together with Egypt and the US, are working together very closely in order to make sure that the ceasefire stays intact. Regarding Qatar’s history of successfully mediating international conflicts, HE Sheikh Mohammed was of the view that each country needs to contribute something to the international community. “We found that we are able to convene between conflicted parties and understand the grievances between them, and try to address them step by step. And we’ve built a track record of credibility, honesty and transparency with those parties.That’s what makes Qatar a destination for mediation.” Asked about relations with Iran, HE the Prime Minister pointed out that Qatar shares the largest gas field in the world with Iran. “We would like to see Iran flourishing, developing and prospering and, of course, we don’t want to see an arms race in our region. We don’t want to see a nuclear race in our region. That’s why we’ve been supporting diplomacy all the time, and hoped that Iran reached a deal with the US and the Europeans in order to get its nuclear programme under supervision and to make sure that it’s a peaceful programme.”Describing the US as Qatar’s ally, HE Sheikh Mohammed said the relationship has been developing in a lot of areas, not only in security and defence, but also in energy, economy and education, in many aspects. “When you look at the security guarantees that we got from US, this is a guarantee for the US interest as well, which are in the region, which are in Qatar, either it’s about the air base... where we are hosting more than 10,000 US soldiers.” Also referring to the presence of American universities and energy companies in Qatar, he asserted that the security guarantee is just a demonstration of the strategic relationship with the US.
