Qatar to reopen embassy in Damascus

Doha withdrew its ambassador at the start of the civil war in 2011

An army plane was loaded with humanitarian aid to be sent to Syria through Marka Airport in Jordan, at Al-Udeid air base in Qatar. AFP

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Qatar announced on Wednesday that it would reopen its embassy in Damascus, which has been closed for over a decade after it revealed it had established a communication channel with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, the group that led factions in the offensive to overthrow Bashar Al Assad's regime.

The country's government adviser and Foreign Ministry spokesman, Majed Al Ansari, said that the embassy would be reopened “soon” to enhance “co-ordination with relevant parties and facilitate the delivery of aid”.

Qatar withdrew its ambassador from Syria at the start of the civil war in 2011 and closed its embassy after attacks on the compound. Throughout the conflict, Doha has consistently supported Syria's opposition.

Damascus fell to the rebels on Sunday, ending Syria's more than five-decade of Assad family rule. Rebel forces have kept the civil administration but to achieve stability they will need to fill the political vacuum and curb fragmentation along sectarian and ethnic lines.

On Tuesday, an official said Qatari diplomats have established a channel of communication with HTS to lead international discussions with the militant group.

HTS is made up mainly of groups from the extremist organisation Jabhat Al Nusra, which was linked to Al Qaeda. It broke those ties with Al Qaeda in 2016 and rebranded itself as Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, after a purge undertaken by the group's leader Ahmad Al Shara, formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al Jawlani.

The UN and countries including the US and Russia have designated HTS a terrorist organisation. Al Shara previously participated in an Iraqi insurgency against the US as a member of a group that eventually became ISIS. He then led the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda in 2011, in the early years of the civil war.

HTS played a significant role in the Syrian civil war and there are doubts over whether it has shed its Al Qaeda past and extreme ideologies.

During a meeting in Doha on Saturday, at which Qatari, Turkish, Iranian and Russian diplomats were representing the main countries backing different sides in Syria’s war, it was agreed that Qatar was best equipped to lead the contact with HTS, as it has not normalised relations with the Assad regime.

“Consensus was reached by all parties at Saturday’s meeting: the priority is to bring the situation in Syria under control and to ensure that extremist groups like Islamic State [ISIS] are not able to gain a foothold in Syria,” the official source said.