Why qatar

At the time, Washington was looking for a neutral place to negotiate with the Islamist militia in order to prepare the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Since , Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is one of the founding members of the Taliban, has led its representation in Qatar.

Baradar is currently the Taliban's political chief and has acted as the extremists' chief negotiator in talks with the United States and the now-ousted Afghan government. In , he signed a so-called peace agreement with the United States in Doha. But the Taliban's rapid rise to power has rendered the paper obsolete. However, it is also worth remembering that as little as three years ago, Baradar was released — reportedly at Washington's behest — from a prison in Pakistan, where he had been detained in by Pakistani intelligent forces working together with the CIA.

The station also broadcast the Taliban's entry into the presidential palace in Kabul. Further examples are Qatar's good relations with Iran and also with the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Sunni Islamist organization that has been designated by some countries as a terrorist organization.

The primary reason is that it wants to improve its regional position," Steinberg said, adding that "in the past, Qatar was very dependent on Saudi Arabia, in the s and s, it was practically a Saudi protectorate. With regard to the situation in Afghanistan, Qatar's foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, commented only a few days ago, that the emirate sees itself as an impartial mediator.

However, the emirate is not entirely impartial, as it set up the office for the Taliban not least for the sake of the United States. The US maintains a large airbase in Al-Udeid. Yet Qatar is certainly not appeasing other countries in the region with its foreign policy and its relations with extremist groups, which in resulted in the so-called "Qatar crisis", when it was blockaded and boycotted by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates UAE , Bahrain and Egypt.

The dispute was officially settled in early , however, analysts believe that the problems were pushed aside rather than resolved. Meanwhile, another aspect remains unclear: How much influence does Qatar have on the Taliban? In the past, the relationship between Qatar and the Taliban has not been entirely free of conflict. There was far less space for Qatar to act, meaning that policies toward both countries needed to be packaged firmly within GCC-wide approaches.

Five days before Qatar and the UAE spearheaded Arab League support for the humanitarian intervention in eastern Libya on March 19, , Saudi Arabia led a GCC force into Bahrain to assist in the restoration of law and order following the uprising in February that threatened briefly to push the ruling family to make significant political concessions in response to opposition calls for reform.

Qatar was directly involved in the effort as a member state of the GCC. Although the vast majority of the Peninsula Shield Force that entered Bahrain was composed of members of the Saudi Arabian National Guard and policemen from the UAE, it contained a small number of Qatari troops in addition to a naval contingent from Kuwait.

This show of force demonstrated the way in which the concept of intervention assumed different meanings in diverging contexts. Any far-reaching concessions to political reform by the Bahraini governing elite, arguably the weakest link in the chain of Gulf monarchies, threatened to embolden opposition movements in other GCC states and upset the delicate sectarian balance of Sunni-Shia interests. The Saudis had exercised considerable political and economic influence over its small offshore neighbor long before the Arab Spring.

Broadly similar parameters were seen in Yemen. Like Bahrain, Yemen held special geostrategic and political interest for Saudi Arabia. Mass demonstrations against the thirty-three-year rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh erupted in the capital, Sanaa, in February and spread rapidly to cities and towns across Yemen. Hundreds of thousands of protesters demanded that Saleh step down immediately, their resolve emboldened by elite defections as the political, tribal, and military circles that surrounded Saleh fragmented.

In a rare act of collective action, the GCC proposed a political transition that would ease Saleh out of power in an elite-led and top-down process. Notably, however, the GCC plan had no position for the grassroots pro-democracy movement that had so unexpectedly emerged to challenge and upend the status quo in Yemen.

Instead, it remained wedded to supporting established political actors as GCC leaders sought to bring under control the mobilized populace and guide the transition to the post-Saleh era. After the failure of its attempts to mediate during the Houthi rebellion in northern Yemen in —, Doha fell back on multilateral regional initiatives for dealing with the country. As part of the Friends of Yemen process that started in following regional and international concern about terrorism originating in Yemen, Qatari and GCC officials worked closely with Western governments to try to stabilize Yemen and prod Saleh toward political reforms.

Persistent rumors of Qatari involvement in the Islamist takeover of northern Mali in demonstrated the extent of the skepticism. A military coup in March overthrew the Malian government, after which rebels seized control of the north of Mali and proclaimed an independent state.

The rebels were from the Tuareg ethnic group, and many had fought for Qaddafi in the Libyan armed forces in However, splits between the MNLA and the militant Islamist group Ansar Dine weakened the rebel movement and resulted in the loss of control of the region to Ansar Dine and another fundamentalist organization, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa. As conditions in northern Mali worsened throughout , attention began to focus on the activities of a small team from the Qatari Red Crescent.

This information was said to have originated in a report from the French Directorate of Military Intelligence, although no supporting evidence was provided.

The assumption that Qatar was linked to Ansar Dine was a widespread one. There is an attitude that is not cooperative and that can be considered as a form of leniency toward the terrorist groups who occupied northern Mali. This attitude coming from Qatar is not normal. We need a policy clarification from Qatar who has always denied any role in funding terrorist groups. On the diplomatic level, Qatar should adopt a much stronger, and firmer position toward these groups who threaten the security of the Sahel region.

Comments such as these underscore the very different environment of latent suspicion bordering on outright hostility that Qatari policymakers now face. In the case of Mali, the allegations that Qatari interests whether state-backed or private were funding or arming rebel groups remain unsubstantiated. But what matters is that there is a significant constituency, both in the region and beyond, that believes it might be true.

In a world where perceptions often shape policy formulation, this negative association of Qatar with destabilizing actors is very damaging. Qatar extended humanitarian assistance and sent packages of food and medicine to conflict-afflicted regions in northern Mali, but even these actions became subject to misinterpretation and rumor.

In a post—Arab Spring world, it will be difficult for Qatar to resume its pre mediation or postconflict reconstruction activities without facing intense levels of scrutiny. The start will be in Kuwait in and in other Gulf states in As the Brotherhood made electoral gains in Tunisia and Egypt, attitudes toward the group in other GCC capitals hardened. During , these divergent attitudes also appeared in Syria, as Saudi Arabia and Qatar backed rival groups of Syrian rebel fighters.

The battle waged by Doha and Riyadh for influence among regional Islamists undermined the search for a unified GCC stance on major internal and external security issues. These tensions forced Qatar to reconsider its policies. When Sheikh Tamim succeeded his father as emir of Qatar in June , he immediately began recalibrating the style of Qatari foreign policy. In his inaugural speech as emir, Tamim indicated that Qatar would continue to pursue its regional policy objectives, albeit in a lower-key and less confrontational manner than under Hamad bin Jassim.

This portended the mending of damaged GCC relationships—particularly with Saudi Arabia—and built upon a Saudi-Qatari decision in spring to shift regional leadership on Syria from Doha to Riyadh. Both efforts were small in scale compared with those before , but they nonetheless represented an attempt to reestablish Qatar as a go-to mediator. Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham to seek a negotiated settlement to the escalating confrontation between the Egyptian military and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The trilateral U. Although the initiative was unsuccessful, the attempt to leverage Qatari influence in a coordinated and multilateral approach with regional and international partners differed significantly from the pursuit of largely unilateral objectives associated with the former Qatari leadership. Symbolically, the two Turkish pilots freed as part of the deal were returned to Turkey aboard a Qatar Airways plane at the successful conclusion of the months-long mediation process.

Simultaneously, Tamim and the new Qatari government began to take a series of steps to reduce tensions with neighbors. Like his predecessor as premier, Hamad bin Jassim, Sheikh Abdullah was entrusted with a second position; however, he was given the Ministry of Interior rather than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But this does not mean that all is well on the foreign policy front. The Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo was ousted just a week after the change of emir in Doha, which required the new leader to immediately distance himself from the contentious policies of his predecessor.

Having largely succeeded in containing the political upheaval at home, the conservative Gulf states rapidly deployed their financial largesse and political support in Egypt. With the toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo effectively signaling the end of the Arab Spring—at least in its initial phase—Saudi and Emirati officials moved quickly to seize the regional initiative away from Qatar.

This is the legacy facing Emir Tamim and his new foreign policy team as they seek to rebuild damaged regional relationships and regain the trust and confidence of GCC partners. Certainly, both the November security agreement and the simmering Saudi, Bahraini, and Emirati anger with Doha were grounded in evidence that Qatar continued to give some form of assistance to members of the Muslim Brotherhood even after the coup. An April declaration by the Omani foreign minister suggested that the GCC rift had been resolved internally and that Qatar would deport up to fifteen Gulf nationals allegedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition, Al Jazeera would become less aggressive in its coverage of regional events and stop referring to the July military takeover in Egypt as a coup. In keeping with the closed nature of policymaking in Doha as elsewhere in the Gulf , decisions will be taken without public fanfare and actions will be left to speak louder than words. In the early days of the Arab Spring, Qatar exerted unprecedented regional leadership and began to emerge as an innovative new actor on the international stage.

Uniquely among states in the Arab world, officials in Doha viewed the unfolding upheaval in North Africa and the Levant as an opportunity to be seized rather than a challenge to be feared. During the Arab Spring, Qatari policy shifted away from the honest-broker mediation that had characterized its pre approach, becoming more interventionist and associated with picking winners in transition states in North Africa and the Levant.

Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Biden also thanked Qatar for facilitating intra-Afghan talks — even though they had failed even before the Taliban took power. Germany, meanwhile, criticized Qatar after the Taliban's political leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was flown to Kandahar from Doha by the Qatari Air Force, days after the Islamist militants had swept across the country.

Former U. The relationship between Qatar and the Taliban is anything but new. At the time, Washington was looking for a neutral place to negotiate with the Islamist militia in order to prepare the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Since , Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is one of the founding members of the Taliban , has led its representation in Qatar.

Baradar is currently the Taliban's political chief and has acted as the extremists' chief negotiator in talks with the United States and the now-ousted Afghan government.

In , he signed a so-called peace agreement with the United States in Doha. But the Taliban's rapid rise to power has rendered the paper obsolete. However, it is also worth remembering that as little as three years ago, Baradar was released — reportedly at Washington's behest — from a prison in Pakistan, where he had been detained in by Pakistani intelligent forces working together with the CIA.

The station also broadcast the Taliban's entry into the presidential palace in Kabul. Further examples are Qatar's good relations with Iran and also with the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Sunni Islamist organization that has been designated by some countries as a terrorist organization. The primary reason is that it wants to improve its regional position," Steinberg said, adding that "in the past, Qatar was very dependent on Saudi Arabia, in the s and s, it was practically a Saudi protectorate.

With regard to the situation in Afghanistan, Qatar's foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, commented only a few days ago, that the emirate sees itself as an impartial mediator. However, the emirate is not entirely impartial, as it set up the office for the Taliban not least for the sake of the United States. The US maintains a large airbase in Al-Udeid. Yet Qatar is certainly not appeasing other countries in the region with its foreign policy and its relations with extremist groups, which in resulted in the so-called "Qatar crisis", when it was blockaded and boycotted by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates UAE , Bahrain and Egypt.

The dispute was officially settled in early , however, analysts believe that the problems were pushed aside rather than resolved. Meanwhile, another aspect remains unclear: How much influence does Qatar have on the Taliban?

In the past, the relationship between Qatar and the Taliban has not been entirely free of conflict. For example, Qatar did not want the Taliban to hoist its flag at its headquarters in Doha or to call the building the representative office of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Qatar has also never officially recognized the "Islamic Emirate" proclaimed by the Taliban in Observers believe that it is also unlikely to happen this time, especially if the US opposes it.