Qatar embassy reopens in Damascus with flag raising: AFP

DAMASCUS: Qatar reopened its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, 13 years after it was closed early in Syria’s civil conflict, as foreign governments seek to establish ties with the country’s new rulers.

An AFP journalist saw Qatar’s flag raised over the mission, making it the second nation, after Turkey, to officially reopen its embassy since rebels drove president Bashar al-Assad from power earlier this month.

Unlike several other Arab governments, Qatar – which supported opposition groups during Syria’s civil war – did not attempt to rehabilitate Assad before his toppling.

Earlier on Saturday, workers were busy sweeping the pavement, cleaning the area and removing graffiti from the building’s walls. One of the workers had placed the Qatari flag at the base of the flagpole.

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Doha sent a diplomatic delegation to Damascus several days ago to meet with the transitional government. The mission expressed “Doha’s full commitment to support the Syrian people”, a Qatari diplomat told AFP.

On Tuesday, the European Union said it was ready to reopen its diplomatic mission in Damascus, while Britain, France and the United States have all sent delegations to the Syrian capital since Assad’s overthrow.

The French flag was raised over Paris’s embassy in Damascus on Tuesday, although the country’s special envoy to Syria said the mission would remain closed “as long as security criteria are not met”.

Meanwhile, the United States on Friday dropped a $10 million bounty it had issued years earlier on Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s new leader and the head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group that spearheaded the ouster of Assad.

HTS has its roots in Al-Qaeda, but has sought to moderate its image in recent years.