The Qatari foreign minister, Khalid al-Attiyah. Photograph: Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters
Khalid al-Attiyah says those with blood on their hands in Syrian regime should be tried at international criminal court
"Bashar al-Assad has "no interest in a political solution to the conflict inSyria" while those "with blood on their hands" should be sent to face justice at the international criminal court, the Qatari foreign minister said on Wednesday.
In a rare public appearance, at the London thinktank Chatham House, Khalid al-Attiyah said Qatar backed the creation of a transitional government for Syria at next month's Geneva II peace conference, which has broad international backing despite its slim chances of success.
But the Syrian government has again insisted Assad must remain president and lead any transition agreed in the Geneva talks – a position flatly rejected by the opposition.
"If anyone thinks we are going to Geneva II to hand the keys to Damascus over [to the opposition], then he might as well not go," the country's information minister, Omran al-Zohbi, said in remarks carried by the official Sana news agency.
Qatar has been a significant supporter of the Syrian rebels since the uprising began in March 2011. The tiny but fabulously wealthy Gulf state has taken a backseat role to neighbouring Saudi Arabia and lowered its profile since the new emir, Sheikh Tamim, took over from his father, Sheikh Hamad, in the summer.
Attiyah said Qatar had tried to persuade Assad to pay a condolence visit to the first victims of the unrest in the southern city of Deraa but had been ignored. Opposition to Assad's rule was not for sectarian reasons, Attiyah insisted. (The Assad regime is based on the Shia-related Alawite minority while Qatar and its Gulf neighbours are Sunni Muslim.) "When Bashar al-Assad decided to kill his people we decided to stand by the people," he said.
"After all the massacres it's clear that the regime should go to The Hague [seat of the international criminal court] and other people should go to Geneva to discuss the transition. The issue is not grey. It's black and white. Whoever has blood on his hands should go to The Hague."
Attiyah said it was up to Syrians to decide whether Iran, a staunch backer of the Syrian government, should be invited to Geneva. "We do differ strongly from Iran over Syria," he said. "But Qatar does not consider Iran as an enemy."
If Iran is invited, it is expected that Saudi Arabia will also be.
Asked about the spread of extremist or jihadi groups in Syria – a source of mounting concern to western and Arab governments – Attiyah suggested that terrorism was a response to the brutality of the war. The Qatari government and individuals have spent an estimated $2bn supporting Syrian rebels, including Islamist units.
According to the latest estimate by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based and pro-opposition monitoring group, 126,000 people from both the government and opposition camp have now been killed in the 33-month uprising.
Salim Idriss, head of the rebel Supreme Military Council, the umbrella group for various militias fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, said this week that his forces would join with Syrian government troops to fight al-Qaida once Assad had been removed from power. Idriss stressed the threat posed by the al-Qaida affiliate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or Isis. The president's departure, he said, was no longer a precondition for attending the Geneva talks.
Among the many grave political problems faced by the conference, a new one has emerged: a shortage of hotel rooms in the Swiss city because of an international watch fair. The likely consequence is that the crisis will have to be discussed in the nearby city of Montreux at the other end of Lake Geneva."
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