World
Report: Qatar offered to cut gas production in exchange for Iran sparing key facility
Qatar reportedly sought a deal with Iran early in the Middle East war that would see Tehran spare a key Qatari energy complex in exchange for Doha halting gas production.
Such a production halt would be meant to send energy prices soaring, ratcheting up pressure on the US and Israel to end the conflict, according to the Washington Post.
Qatar’s efforts fell apart when Iran on March 18 struck Ras Laffan and other gas fields across the Persian Gulf in response to Israel’s first-ever targeting of a major Iranian gas field, the report said.
The fighting began on February 28, when Israel and the US launched a bombing campaign on Iran in a bid to destabilize its regime and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
Iran responded with missile and drone strikes across the region, and by imposing a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, which choked off about a fifth of the world’s oil shipments and triggered a global spike in energy prices.
The fighting entered a fragile truce on April 8. Qatar, which is friendly with both the US and Iran, has since been involved in mediation between the two countries to bring the war to an end.
Qatar’s appeal to Iran at the start of the war was intercepted by a non-US intelligence service that was monitoring communications of Iranian leaders, according to the Washington Post, which cited regional security officials and Western officials briefed on the intelligence.
While Iran never committed to the deal, Qatar’s conduct early in the war suggested the possibility of a “tacit understanding” between the countries, the report said.
Qatar shuttered Ras Laffan on the third day of the war, and spread misinformation that it was hit by Iran and had to be closed, according to the newspaper.
The report cited satellite footage showing the facility was not obviously damaged in the first week of March, even when Qatari officials indicated it was. Nor did there appear to be damage to other energy sites that Qatari officials had claimed were hit and needed to be closed.
Qatar’s International Media Office strongly rejected the report, saying in a statement that it had never coordinated with Iran on energy during the war and that it was “baseless” to suggest “Qatar exaggerated or fabricated damage to the Ras Laffan LNG facility as a pretext for its closure.”
“Any suggestion that operational decisions relating to energy production were – or have ever been – made in coordination with Iran, for Iran’s benefit, or to influence the course of the conflict is entirely unfounded,” the statement said, noting that “Qatar was actively defending its territory against Iranian missile attacks at the time.”
The statement accused the Washington Post of having shifted the “basis of the allegations” over time but sticking to them “despite the facts and information presented to it.”
“The allegations rely on false and unreliable material originating from actors whose objective is to sabotage ongoing efforts to mediate an end to the conflict, damage Qatar’s reputation, and undermine the strategic partnership between Qatar and the United States,” the statement said.
