Qatar’s prime minister said in an interview that aired Sunday that violations of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire are occurring constantly but that his country continues to work to keep the agreement from collapsing.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, who is also Qatar’s foreign minister, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria: “The violations are happening every day. And we have, like we have in the de-confliction room, the operation room that we did together with Egypt and the United States. We register everything over there. … We work together very closely with them in order to make sure that the ceasefire stay intact.”
Alongside President Donald Trump, Qatar was a major player in efforts to bring an end, or at least a cessation, to the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Speaking on “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” the Qatari leader said that when it comes to an international presence to keep the peace in that embattled area, “there should be a defined mandate.”
He added: “Basically the international forces’ role should be securing the Palestinians and the Israelis that both of them doesn’t, don’t pose a threat for each other.”
Al-Thani, speaking in broader terms, told Zakaria that his tiny nation has adopted conflict mediation as its own special role in world affairs.
“From our perspective,” he said, “each country in the international community needs to contribute something to the international community. We found ourselves that we are able to convene between conflicted parties and understand the grievances.”
Al-Thani said that Qatar, a country approximately the combined size of Connecticut and Rhode Island, tries to address the issues in world conflicts “step by step.”
He added: “We’ve built a track record of credibility and honesty.”
But Qatar has been disparaged not only for maintaining contacts with Hamas but also with Iran, another outlaw on the world stage. Al-Thani swatted aside that criticism.
“Iran is my neighbor,” Al-Thani said. “Iran is just 150 miles away from me. I share with them the largest gas field in the world. Iran is part of our region, and I have to deal with them. And we would like to see Iran flourishing and 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.”
The Qatari leader also rejected the idea that the Trump administration provided security guarantees to Qatar only because it gifted Trump with a plane that is to serve as Air Force One and later as a plane for his presidential library.
“There is no relation at all between those two topics,” he said. First of all, this plane issue, I’ve been answering it like many times. U.S. is our partner and our ally, and this plane happened. It’s a government-to-government agreement, which is normally happening between us and any other governments also around the world.”
