(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian revolution and Qatar have many intersections and Qatar preceded everyone in some of these intersections. Zaman al-Wasl presents 7 priorities for Qatar with the Syrian revolution:
July 18, 2011: The Qatari Ambassador and the Qatari Diplomatic Mission leave Damascus and close the Embassy building in the first official and clear diplomatic protest step against the suppression of peaceful protests by Assad regime. Qatar preceded all the countries of the world in this step (Qatari ambassador was withdrawn on 18 August 2011). Also, Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador on 8 August 2011.
September 25, 2012: Qatar openly and officially calls for military intervention in Syria against the regime and calls for the implementation of a no-fly zone. The invitation came from the United Nations platform and the words of Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and then Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim. Qatar is therefore one of the first, if not the first in the world, to call for military intervention and paralyze the regime air force and later Syrians became victims to the regime extensive and insane use of air force to destroy Syria.
November 11, 2012, Doha witnessed the birth of the Syrian National Coalition as an umbrella organization for the revolutionary forces and the Syrian opposition. The next day, November 12, Qatar recognized the coalition as part of a collective action by various Arab countries.
March 26, 2013: The Syrian opposition occupies the seat of "Syria" in the Arab League, during the Arab summit in Doha, and this was the first and last time the Syrian opposition was able to represent Syria in the Arab League, and it is clear that the weight and pressure of the host country (Qatar) was the main factor in handing over the seat to the opposition.
The Doha summit is the first Arab summit to recognize the National Coalition as a legitimate and sole representative of the Syrian people. The first flag of the Syrian revolution was raised for the first time in the corridors of the summit instead of the regime flag. The Doha summit recognized the right of the Arab states to arm the Syrian opposition, and Qatar was quick to implement this on the ground.
Since the outbreak of the Arab Spring, six consecutive summits have been held in Baghdad, Doha, Kuwait, Egypt, Mauritania and Jordan. All these summits and host countries did not allow the Syrian opposition to occupy the seat of Syria and others preferred to raise the flag of the regime, except for the Doha summit, which was an exception in terms of inviting the opposition and giving it the representation of Syria and enable them to deliver a formal speech and raise the flag of revolution in the corridors of the summit.
March 27, 2013: Qatar hands over the Syrian Embassy building in Doha to the Syrian opposition represented by the National Coalition, thus becoming the first country to hand over the regime's embassy to the Coalition as the "legitimate representative of the Syrian people".
December 23, 2013: Qatar has been working silently and consistently on one of the most important dossiers in the history of the Syrian revolution, the dossier of the victims of torture in the prisons of Bashar al-Assad, which includes about 55 thousand terrifying images leaked by a dissident military known as "Caesar."
Qatar secured legal support to document the dossier, so that it had the power to be heard before the various judicial bodies.
The dossier after documentation proved the strongest evidence to condemn the regime of killing Syrians since the outbreak of the revolution and the regime cannot evade its consequences if a trial is held due to the high professional efforts made in the processing and documentation.
November 26, 2016: While world countries were carefully awaiting the news in the wake of Trump's strong rush to presidency, Qatar issues a statement saying that it will continue to "arm the Syrian opposition even if the American stand changes if Donald Trump was elected although "Trump" had said after his victory that the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad is not a priority for him, and that he will focus on fighting the ISIS.
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