Manama: In an address to the nation at the opening of the Shura Council on Tuesday, Qatar’s Emir Shaikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani said that the GCC remained the top regional dimension.
“The consolidation of the GCC, the reinforcement of our relations with all its member states and the deepening of the bonds of fraternity among us remain at the top of our foreign policy,” the emir said. “Within this context, we welcome our brothers the leaders of the GCC countries to their summit to be hosted in Qatar next month. We hope that the summit will adopt resolutions that fulfil the aspirations and ambitions of our Gulf people and support security and stability in the region,” he said.Shaikh Tamim warned that the region was going through dangerous times in which there are concurring crises in many countries, “mainly the failure of the peace negotiations to solve the Palestinians [issue], the continuation of the policy of occupation and settlement in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the siege on Gaza.”
“There are the additional dangers resulting from the growth of terrorism and extremism and which could have very grave consequences,” he said. “I did say before that combating terrorism and extremism could not be by airstrikes. This is true from the military point of view, but there are also the political and social angles. We must eliminate the causes that contributed to the creation of social environments that embraced extremism, mainly the unprecedented violence perpetrated by the Syrian regime and practiced by some militias in Iraq. Any policy to combat terrorism in Syria and Iraq that does not take this into consideration is merely a crisis management policy without a strategy,” he said.
The emir said that his country is totally opposed all forms of terrorism and religious extremism.
“I would like to add here that our position towards terrorism and religious radicalism that harm religion and the community is [of] categorical rejection, regardless of the causes of its inception and treatment,” he said. “Our premise regarding combating terrorism, and killing innocent lives as well as rejecting extremism, emanates from the social and cultural threat that they pose to our society, our religion and our nation. We do not want ourselves and our children to live under such ideas and practices,” Shaikh Tamim said.
