Geneva: Qatar has been condemned for trying to politicise a key UN forum.
Measure taken by the Arab Quartet – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt – against Qatar fall under context of exercising their sovereign rights to protect their national security from irresponsible Qatari policies, UAE’s permanent representative at UN in Geneva said yesterday.
Obaid Salem Al Zaabi was delivering a statement on behalf of the four nations before the UN Human Rights Council, as part of the right of reply to the allegations stated in the Qatari statement during the 39th regular session of the council in regards to the debate of the oral briefing of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Qatar tried “to drag the UN mechanisms into a political crisis whose main trigger is the Qatari practices and policies against our states”, he pointed out.
“The quartet has repeatedly affirmed these measures, which aimed to protect our security and peoples, will be lifted once the Qatari government stops supporting and funding terrorism and responds to our concerns that were repeatedly announced by our leaders for the sake of protecting stability in the region,” Al Zaabi said.
“The Qatari side must show a sign of good faith to open a serious dialogue with our states under the Kuwaiti mediation.
“We reiterate our states’ commitment and readiness to show positive co-operation with the Kuwaiti mediation to end this political crisis away from Doha’s tireless attempts to take it from the regional to the international context.
“We believe that these attempts will lead to nothing, but to protract the political crisis without reaching true understandings that guarantee security and stability to our states and peoples.”
The UAE envoy urged members “to work together to prevent abuse of the council by attempts to raise issues out of its mandate and to take necessary measures to maintain credibility of the council and its work ethics by keeping debates at an excellent and honest level as much as possible.’’
Meanwhile, Bahrain’s Assistant Foreign Minister Abdulla Al Doseri attended the opening of 39th session of the council.
He congratulataed the new High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, on her appointment and expressed hope for constructive work to create a successful strategic partnership to achieve goals in promoting human rights at all levels.
He underlined that Bahrain’s reforms process, under His Majesty King Hamad, is based on respecting human rights and dignity.
Bahrain has become an example in the region in the field of human rights due to its many achievements in this regard, he noted.