CIGPA studies geopolitical repercussions of Qatar crisis

CAIRO – 29 June 2017: The International Center for Geopolitical and Prospective Analytics (CIGPA) organized a forum titled “Qatari Investments in France and the Equation of the Unknown Fate: Qatar between Politics and Terrorism.” The forum was held in Paris in collaboration with the French Center for Information Research (CF2R) on June 26.

In his speech, CIGPA’s head Mezri Haddad clarified that the forum’s topic was set since the beginning of the year prior to the eruption of the Qatari crisis.

The forum attended by 300 persons started with discussions over reasons and political and geopolitical repercussions of the boycott.

International relations professor Antoine Saghir explained that the conflict between Arab states on one hand and Iran having Qatar as an ally on the other hand is not a sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.

It is an ideological, political, and geostrategic conflict between an expansive Persian power and Arab powers aiming for balance and peace.

Saghir added that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) went off its neutrality due to a radical clash between its foreign, anti-terrorism, and anti-extremism policies, and the Qatari foreign policies supporting the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Islamic State (IS).

The former French Intelligence Manager explained Qatar’s role in destroying Libya which he learned from intelligence reports and from his meetings with former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi.

Former French Foreign Affairs Minister Roland Dumas confirmed the information, stressing that the role of Qatar and Syria has always been destructive by delivering huge funds to terrorist groups such as the militias of Abdel Hakim Belhaj in Libya and the Islamic State in Syria.

Nofal Ibrahimi El Molly, professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, stated that the boycott decision is an outcome of a “fake Arab Spring” precipitated by Qatar, which supported terrorist groups with cash and weapons.

Molly added that acts were endorsed by the former U.S. President Barack Obama, Turkey, and Iran.

The second session in the forum was titled “Terrorism and Muslim Brotherhood Business and Promotion.”

Dumas and other speakers stipulated that French President Emmanuel Macron should review the relations between Qatar and France, and follow the same policies adopted by former French President Charles de Gaul toward the Arab World.

Philippe Kamal, parliament member who wrote a parliamentarian report on foreign investments in France in February 2015, criticized the disproportion between Qatar’s investments in France and its lobbying powers within decision-making spheres in the country.

Finally, sports reporters speculated that Qatar would be prohibited from organizing FIFA World Cup in 2022 as several corruption cases among FIFA officials and the International Olympic Committee, in which Qatar was implicated, unraveled.