Qatar Says Arab Inaction in Libya Led to West Strikes
The West intervened in Libya after the Arab League, many of whose members also face revolts, failed to live up to its duty to protect civilians, Qatar's emir said in an interview broadcast on Thursday.
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani told Al-Jazeera television, based in Doha, he hoped the 22-member organization would now step up and meet its responsibility "amidst the ongoing changes" sweeping the region.
His country has joined the Western-led air strikes on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces under a U.N. Security Council resolution after the Arab League backed the enforcement of a no-fly zone over the country.
"The suffering of civilians in Libya led the international community to intervene because of the inaction of the Arab League which was supposed to assume the role," said Sheikh Hamad.
In London at an international conference on the conflict in Libya, Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani said on Tuesday that the crisis was an Arab affair in which the region's states should play much more of a role.
Several Arab states stayed away from the conference which set up a Libya Contact Group, with its first meeting to take place in Qatar.
They included Egypt, where pro-democracy protesters forced Hosni Mubarak from power in February, and Algeria, where President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is confronted by a wave of pro-reform protests.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa was represented by an ambassador after declining to take up his invitation.
Qatar, meanwhile, apart from being the first Arab state to take part in the air strikes, has scored another regional first by officially recognizing the transitional council of Libya's battling rebels.
Source: Agence France Presse
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