Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, in an interview with Doha-based Al Jazeera satellite channel late on Monday, said the deadly conflict ravaging Syria was not a “civil war”.
“What is happening in Syria is not a civil war but a war of extermination against the Syrian people,” he said.
This war, he charged, was being waged “with a licence to kill, endorsed firstly by the Syrian government and secondly by the international community”.
Russia and China have repeatedly vetoed UN Security Council resolutions threatening action against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim said: “We have confidence in (UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar) Brahimi… but we need him to develop a clear proposal for a solution that can be put before the Security Council paving the way for a transition period and a transfer of power.”
Brahimi, who saw the truce he had brokered for the Eid al-Adha holiday shattered in an explosion of violence soon after it took effect on Friday, said in Moscow the situation in Syria was “bad and getting worse”.
Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said Ankara is ruling out any dialogue with the Syrian regime.
“There is no point in engaging in dialogue with a regime that continues to carry out such a massacre against its own people, even during (the Muslim festival of) Eid al-Adha,” Davutoglu said at a news conference in Ankara.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had called on the West and regional players including Turkey to start negotiating with President Assad as well as the opposition to pave the way for a political solution in Syria, wracked by almost 20 months of conflict.
“Hardly anything will be accomplished without dialogue with the government, and that is the only problem that remains in the path towards a political process,” Lavrov said.
Davutoglu said dialogue with Damascus would be a step that could “be legitimising the existing regime as the violence continues”.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, a one-time ally of Assad, fell out with Damascus after its deadly crackdown on popular dissent that erupted in March last year.
Turkey has since sheltered some 108,000 refugees fleeing the conflict, as well as the exiled Syrian opposition’s military and political leaderships.
Ankara had backed Brahimi’s call for a truce during the Eid holiday that never took hold, with each side accusing the other of violating it.
Davutoglu said the failed truce left Turkey “deeply upset”.
