Qatar has announced its intentions Sunday not to renew its ties with Syria following the country's fourth election, but it did discuss the possibility of mending its agreement with the United Arab Emirates.Qatar has no plans to normalize ties with Syria, the Gulf state's foreign minister said, after Syrian President Bashar Assad won a fourth term in office last week in an election derided by the opposition and the West as a farce.
Qatar was among several regional states including Saudi Arabia that backed rebels in Syria's decade-old civil war. Some like the United Arab Emirates have sought to normalize ties after Assad regained control of most of the country.
"So far we see nothing on the horizon for a political solution acceptable to the Syrian people...the [regime's] approach and conduct has not changed," Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told UK-based Al Araby television in an interview aired on Friday.
"There is no motivation for us to re-establish ties with the Syrian regime at this time," Sheik Mohammed said. "The Syrian regime is committing crimes against its people."However, regarding the UAE, Qatar has held several rounds of talks to mend fences following an agreement to end an inter-Arab feud and there is a "positive vision" to overcome differences, the Qatari foreign minister said.
Saudi Arabia in January announced a deal to end the row in which the kingdom, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed all ties with Qatar in 2017 over accusations it supports terrorism - a broad allusion to Islamist movements - a charge that it denies.
Diplomats and regional sources have said Riyadh and Cairo were moving faster than the UAE and Bahrain to rebuild the relationship with Doha.
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told UK-based Al Araby television in an interview aired on Friday that it was natural for talks to have different paces.
He said there has been positive progress in talks with Saudi Arabia, which Qatar's emir visited recently, and with Egypt, where Sheikh Mohammed held talks last week. He said Qatar was discussing economic cooperation with both countries.
"With the UAE, the committees held several meetings ... and we sensed from the working teams a positive vision to overcome differences," the minister said. He said the last round was held a few weeks ago and he was also in touch with Emirati officials.
"It could take some time to move past this difficult period," he added.
The UAE and Egypt oppose Qatari support for Islamist groups, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, outlawed by all four states.
Asked whether the topic of the Brotherhood had been discussed with Egypt, Sheikh Mohammed said: "This file was not brought up as far as I know."
"We do not have many outstanding issues with Egypt and there is positive progress," he said without elaborating, while noting coordination between the two countries to secure a ceasefire brokered by Egypt in the Gaza Strip