A Kurdish lawmaker called on Friday for closing the offices of Qatar’s Al Jazeera television in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region over the Gulf country’s support for the Turkish military operation against Kurdish regions in northern Syria.
MP Burhan Qanie said Al Jazeera is adopting Qatar’s policy in covering the Turkish invasion, citing the remarks of its foreign minister who voiced his support for Ankara’s bloody operation against civilians in Kurdish regions in Syria.
He told Asharq Al-Awsat that Al Jazeera was spreading “poison and false reports about the operation”, which demands that the Kurdistan Region sever diplomatic relations with Qatar and close the television’s bureau in Erbil.
When Qatari Defense Minister Khaled al-Atieh expressed his country’s support for the “Turkish army’s massacres against civilians in western Kurdistan (northern Syria), he demonstrated just how much low regard” he has for the Kurdish people’s lives.
Qanie noted that Qatar was pumping massive funds into Al Jazeera to use it as a means to spread its political agenda that it shares with several countries in the region, starting with Turkey.
“We cannot consider Al Jazeera a professional media channel because it promotes a suspicious agenda that reflects Doha’s hostility to several countries in the region, starting with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and even the Palestinian cause,” he stated.
