Qatar Says Diplomacy Has ‘No Alternative’ as Belgium and Rwanda Restore Ties
Doha — Qatar said diplomacy remains the only viable path out of international crises, after Belgium and Rwanda restored diplomatic ties in a breakthrough that Doha helped broker.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Qatar would keep pressing for diplomatic solutions from Africa’s Great Lakes region to the Gulf, arguing that the cost of allowing dialogue to fail is too high.
His remarks followed a joint statement in which Belgium and Rwanda thanked Qatar for facilitating their first talks in June 2025. Al-Ansari said that meeting helped set the stage for a fuller diplomatic rapprochement and ended an 18-month rupture during which the two countries expelled each other’s diplomats over the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The dispute has been one of the many flashpoints tied to eastern DRC, where the M23 armed group has been a central player in the fighting. Qatar has deepened its involvement in the region, mediating among the DRC, Rwanda and M23 and hosting the June 2025 talks in Doha.
“It was a breakthrough meeting between the two foreign ministers, who hadn’t met for a while, addressing a lot of underlying issues,” al-Ansari said.
He said Belgium and Rwanda trusted Qatar because of its record of working with both countries.
“This is the way we usually do it. We provide the platform, we provide our trustworthiness, we get the parties involved and then we hope that that trajectory would move in its own right,” he said.
The diplomatic thaw underscores Qatar’s broader strategy of positioning itself as a neutral intermediary. On Tuesday, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani told the UN General Assembly in New York that Qatar, as a mediator, has always sought to resolve disputes through dialogue and negotiations and to “reach just and fair solutions grounded in international law.”
Qatar’s foreign minister also met his Iranian counterpart to discuss efforts to de-escalate tensions in the Gulf and create conditions conducive to dialogue. Al-Ansari said there had been some movement in negotiations to end the U.S.-Israel war on Iran in recent days, despite many setbacks in previous rounds.
“We do believe that there is no alternative to diplomacy, and we cannot afford to let diplomacy fail,” he said.
“Right now, the emphasis is on keeping the lines of communication open, keeping the exchange going and listening to both sides,” he added.
Qatari leaders met U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday during the UN General Assembly. Al-Ansari said they told Trump that the effects of the Iran war and of the conflict in Gaza and the occupied West Bank were being felt internationally and would only grow.
He said Qatar was working with Pakistan, Oman and other Gulf Cooperation Council states toward a diplomatic resolution.
“The sooner we get to it, the less the effects will be felt around the world,” he said.
For Brussels and Kigali, the restored ties could open the way for more direct coordination on the DRC crisis and on broader regional security. For Doha, the restoration offers another example of how it uses mediation to expand influence across Europe, Africa and the Middle East—even as its regional alignments remain under scrutiny.