Qatar warns Iran war could yield 'catastrophic results' for the world

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - DOHA — Qatar, a global mediating force over the years,stressed on Tuesday that Iran needed to halt its attacks before any talks can be held.

Speaking at a press conference in Doha, Qatar's Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said Qatar is being attacked daily by Iran, “so we cannot speak of any talks with it before it ceases its assaults.”

Contacts are ongoing with all parties to ensure an end to the conflict, he added, while accusing Iran of attacking civilian infrastructure in Qatar.

Al-Ansari issued a full-frontal warning to Iran as well as the US and Israel saying Qatar had constantly cautioned the world about the “catastrophic results we are seeing across the region” and the ensuing global repercussions of the Iran escalation.

In a striking statement on Tuesday, he said, “This is the biggest I told you so in the history if I told you sos in the world.”

Answering a question about the echoes of Qatar’s ongoing warnings for many months, Al-Ansari stated that Qatar “said from day one: left unchecked the escalation that started in 2023 would lead to a regional war."

"What we are seeing right now is a regional war," he pointed out.

While Qatar believes that the war could still be contained, according to Dr Al-Ansari, "the trajectory we are going through right now is a very dangerous trajectory for the region and we keep warning that again this left unchecked and conflict moved from negotiations rooms to battlefields will lead to even more catastrophic results for the people in the region.”

Al-Ansari said that Iran must stop its attacks before any talks of a diplomatic settlement and accused Iran of targeting civilian infrastructures in the Gulf and beyond, which does not just threaten the region but “it will cause repercussions throughout the world, the ripple effects of attacking the energy facilities in this region.”

He further stated that “Iran’s targeting vital civilian infrastructure that sustains people’s lives is a grave danger for the people of the region and beyond.”

"We will see a humanitarian catastrophe as a result of these attacks," Dr Al-Ansari emphasized. "Any attack on Qatar will be handled in the appropriate manner," he concluded.

Qatar hoped that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s apology to its neighbours over the attacks would stop the strikes, but they continued unabated, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said, refusing to comment on the appointment of Iran’s new supreme leader.

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“We are busy defending our country from Iranian missiles, and we are not at the time of political niceties," he said.

Dr Al-Ansari also told Euronews that Qatar “highly appreciates” Europe’s support for Qatar and the Gulf Cooperation Countries and that “it has proven its worth many times during this conflict”.

“This is the time when you know your friends and the worth of the friendship and the partnership that you have with them,” Dr Al-Ansari said about the “constant coordination and calls happening between the leaders of the EU and the leaders in the GCC and the Arab countries affected.”

Just minutes after Qatar’s Foreign Ministry briefing ended, the air raid alerts sounded again in Qatar. The Ministry of Defense said it had intercepted another missile targeting the country, after Monday’s wave of Iranian attacks with 17 ballistic missiles and six drones.

Iran has claimed multiple times that it is only targeting US interests in the Gulf countries, warning that any regional support for the US will be considered by Tehran as a hostile act, justifying Iranian strikes.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry answered that “the strategic partnerships not only with the US, but with all of defense partners in the world is not up for question."

"I think it's very clear that right now, while our Patriot systems are defending the country alongside our American friends and allies and others from Europe and beyond, that these security partnerships are the main stopgap against and deterrent against any attacks on our country,” Dr Al-Ansari said.

"Obviously, right now the question is if they were a deterrent, then why are we being attacked right now?"

"Well, this is the nature of the beast when it comes to international politics," he said.

"When things go out of control, when a conflict spirals out of control, the result is that deterrence does not work. This has happened every time in history," Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman concluded. — Agencies