Qatari PM: Our Country Is a Platform for Bringing Everyone to Dialogue

People attend the 22nd edition of the annual Doha Forum in Doha, Qatar December 7, 2024. Reuters/Bassam Masoud
People attend the 22nd edition of the annual Doha Forum in Doha, Qatar December 7, 2024. Reuters/Bassam Masoud
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Qatari PM: Our Country Is a Platform for Bringing Everyone to Dialogue

People attend the 22nd edition of the annual Doha Forum in Doha, Qatar December 7, 2024. Reuters/Bassam Masoud
People attend the 22nd edition of the annual Doha Forum in Doha, Qatar December 7, 2024. Reuters/Bassam Masoud

Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani stressed on Saturday that the Doha Forum 2024 has gone beyond being merely a space to share perspectives to become a global platform that gathers leaders and surmounts global challenges.

Welcoming the participants during the opening of the forum, he said that in a world where events have rapidly evolved and crises have escalated in an unprecedented way, there is a sore need to return to fundamental principles by creating novel solutions for peace, stability and development.

Previous experiences have proven that adhering to the traditional approach to dealing with intractable crises will only lead to reproducing the same challenges, and perhaps exacerbating them, he warned, according to Qatar’s state news agency (QNA).

The forum, he added, is being held while the world stands at a crossroads of critical decisions, either surrendering to the cycle of violence that many regions around the world are grappling with or innovating new solutions that ensure the end of the current violence and lay a solid foundation for enduring peace and fair prosperity and guarantee stability for future generations.

“Gaza is undoubtedly a stark model of this violent cycle, an unprecedented humanitarian tragedy, but also a genocide that happens under the watch of the world which would have dangerous repercussions threatening the entire region, as demonstrated in Lebanon,” he noted.

“Nations must ask crucial questions about the effectiveness of conventional means in dealing with conflicts, as these questions become more urgent with each passing day,” Sheikh Mohammed went on to say.

Successive crises have revealed the magnitude of the gap between traditional methods and systems and the rapidly accelerating contemporary challenges, he outlined, emphasizing that the world today is in urgent need of advanced institutions for international cooperation, which go beyond traditional frameworks and rely on principles of justice and inclusivity, while benefiting from tools of the digital age.

Sheikh Mohammed emphasized that a serious and candid stance is required in the face of the changes of this era, adding that peoples of the region are living in an age of massive technological advancements.

He stressed that everything possible should be done to ensure that these technologies remain tools to drive economic development and promote peace and human welfare.



Mediator Qatar Says Israel ‘Did Not Abide’ by Gaza Truce Deal

 Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, meets with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, left, at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, meets with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, left, at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP)
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Mediator Qatar Says Israel ‘Did Not Abide’ by Gaza Truce Deal

 Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, meets with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, left, at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, meets with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, left, at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP)

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said Thursday that Israel had failed to respect January’s ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

“As you know, we reached an agreement months ago, but unfortunately Israel did not abide by this agreement,” said the ruler of Qatar, a key mediator of the deal.

A truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Qatar with Egypt and the United States, came into force on January 19, largely halting more than 15 months of fighting triggered by Palestinian fighters’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

The initial phase of the truce ended in early March, with the two sides unable to agree on the next steps. Israel resumed air and ground attacks across the Gaza Strip on March 18 after earlier halting the entry of aid.

Israel said Wednesday that it had converted 30 percent of Gaza into a buffer zone in the widening offensive.

Sheikh Tamim said Qatar would “strive to bridge perspectives in order to reach an agreement that ends the suffering of the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza.”

Putin recognized Qatar’s “serious efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict” and called deaths in the conflict “a tragedy.”

“A long-term settlement can only be achieved on the basis of the UN resolution and first of all connected to the establishment of two states,” he added.

Israel’s renewed assault has so far killed at least 1,691 people in Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reported, bringing the overall toll since the war erupted to 51,065, most of them civilians.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.