DOHA: The current Gulf crisis is the worst event in history registered in the region because there is no excuse for this crisis and it is unethical without any reasons and not only the people of Qatar, all the people of the Gulf are suffering from it.
“It is a turning point in the history of the region and the worst on certain grounds. It was built on lies and false allegations; it is hurting not only humans, even animals,” said Dr Mohamed Al Musfir, Political Science Professor at Qatar University while talking in a special transmission of Qatar TV show “The Truth” recorded at Katara yesterday.
On the occasion of 300 days of the siege, TV talk show held an open-to-public programme at Katara which has hosted a number of guests among them media persons, university professors, writers and intellectuals.
“The siege countries did not succeed in persuading any country on their stance on the crisis and the Western countries have rebutted the allegations of the siege countries that Qatar supports terrorism,” Al Musfir added.
He questioned “if the crisis was small as the siege countries were claiming”, then why they are spending a trillion dollar on buying weapons and distributing the money to malign Qatar’s reputation in the world.
The TV programme dealt with main issues such as the tirade raised by the siege countries against Qatar and the claims of them that the crisis is very small. Another issue highlighted in the programme was the economic war waged by siege countries on Qatar. Regarding the list of demands presented by the siege countries, Al Musfir said the list was presented to be rejected.
For his part, Dr Khalid Shams Al Abdulkader, Dean of College of Economy and Business, Qatar University said that the siege had failed since the first day of its beginning “when Qatar succeeded in offering new alternatives of food items from other countries”.
“Now Qatar is focused on self-sufficiency projects and has achieved it as dairy and agriculture products have witnessed tremendous growth in short span of time,” he observed. Al Abdulkader pointed out that Qatar’s economy was not small.
“It is equal to quarter of Saudi economy and half of Egypt’s economy. The trade of Qatar with various countries have witnessed a significant increase. It was $88bn in 2016 and increased to $93bn last year.”
Dr Naif bin Nahar, a University Professor, said that the success of the Qatar’s diplomacy was great despite the importance of siege countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt. “They failed to persuade global community on their allegations. They did not move any complaint against Qatar through international legal forums rather they dealt it through obsolete practices of the past.”
He explained that the world community had seen the differences that Qatar’s diplomacy was depending only on legal channels while the diplomacy of the siege countries knew no international diplomatic norms.
“Among the reasons behind the success of Qatar’s diplomacy is that it depends on multiple choices. Qatar has asked for dialogue but it also signed military agreements to maintain its sovereignty,” he pointed out.
Dr Nahar noted that if Qatar’s diplomacy is compared with that of the siege countries, one can note that their diplomacy revolves around contradictions. “For example, the time of the siege was Ramadan and how can Muslims countries impose siege on a Muslim country in Ramadan. Also about the demands initially they said they were complaints then they backtracked from their positions terming them as demands.”
Other guests also said that the crisis had divided the families and relatives and had brought the enemies closer to each other. They noted that the crisis would affect the whole Arab region. They also mentioned that the crisis had proved the important role of Turkey in the regional security.
