By Andrew Mills
DOHA (Reuters) – Qatar will send its first official delegation to Damascus on Sunday to meet Syria’s interim government and discuss reopening the Qatari embassy and enhancing humanitarian aid deliveries, a Qatari official told Reuters on Friday.
“They will take the necessary steps to reopen the embassy and discuss enhancing aid delivery,” the official said.
Previous reports by Syria’s information ministry about a visit by Qatar’s intelligence chief on Thursday were untrue, the Qatari official said.
The visit will come less than a week after Qatari diplomats spoke with Syria’s leading rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as regional countries race to open contact with the group and the interim government it established after its rapid offensive toppled President Bashar al-Assad.
Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin was in Damascus on Thursday for talks involving Syria’s new leadership.
In the report that the Qatari official said was untrue, Syria’s information ministry had said Qatar’s head of state security, Khalfan al-Kaabi, joined Kalin in the capital on Thursday.
Qatar’s embassy in Damascus has been shut since July 2011 when it withdrew its ambassador from Damascus after a series of deadly crackdowns by Assad’s regime on street protesters – violence that led to the 13-year-long civil war.
Doha in recent years rejected efforts by several Arab countries to mend relations with Assad’s government and reestablish diplomatic relations with Damascus.
(Reporting by Andrew Mills; editing by Louise Heavens; editing by Mark Heinrich)
