Premier said Qatar opposes military action against Iran and that it would “not give up until we see a diplomatic solution between the US and Iran”
Qatar’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani , has warned on Fiday that an attack on Iran’s Gulf coast nuclear facilities “entirely contaminate” the waters of the Gulf that will threaten life in Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait.
The three desert states, facing Iran on the opposite side of the Persian Gulf, have minimal natural water reserves and are home to more than 18 million people whose only supply of potable water is desalinated water drawn from the Gulf.
In an interview with right-wing US media personality Tucker Carlson, who is close to US President Donald Trump, the Qatari premier said Doha had simulated the effects of an attack, reports AFP.
The sea would be “entirely contaminated” and Qatar would “run out of water in three days”, he said.
The construction of reservoirs since then had increased water capacity, he added, but the risk remained for “all of us” in the region.
“No water, no fish, nothing… no life,” Sheikh Mohammed added in the interview published on Friday, the same day that US President Donald Trump sent a letter to Iranian leadership suggesting the two countries begin negotiations toward a nuclear deal.
Alluding to military action, Trump said he would “rather see a peace deal” but that “the other will solve the problem”.
Qatar, which sits 190 kilometres (120 miles) south of Iran, relies heavily on desalination for its water supply, as do other Gulf Arab countries in the arid desert region.
Iran has a nuclear power plant at Bushehr on the Gulf coast, though its uranium enrichment facilities, key to building atomic weapons, are located hundreds of kilometres (miles) inland.
Referring to sites “on the other side of the coast”, Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar had “not only military concerns, but also security and… safety concerns”.
He said Qatar opposed military action against Iran and that it would “not give up until we see a diplomatic solution between the US and Iran”.
Sheikh Mohammed urged a diplomatic solution to avoid a strike on Iran that would trigger a “war that will spread all over the region.”
“There is no way that Qatar would support any kind of military step… we will not give up until we see a diplomatic solution,” he said.
Tehran was “willing to engage”, he said.
Western powers have long accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons, which it denies. In 2015, it signed a deal to lift sanctions in exchange for reining in its nuclear programme, but Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 during his first term. — Agencies
