US President Joe Biden thanked Qatar\u2019s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Tuesday for Doha\u2019s help\u00a0securing the release of five Americans\u00a0detained in Iran, according to the Qatari News Agency (QNA).<\/p>\n
The QNA said the two leaders also discussed strategic ties and ways to bolster them \u201cin a range of fields.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden praised Qatar\u2019s \u201cconstructive role\u201d in facilitating the deal between Washington and Tehran.<\/p>\n
Last month, five Americans were freed from Iran in exchange for releasing five Iranians from US custody and unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds abroad. Those funds were transferred from South Korea to Qatar, where Iran will reportedly only be able to use them for humanitarian purposes.<\/p>\n
QNA cited Qatar\u2019s emir as reiterating his belief in the \u201cimportance of dialogue as the only way to resolve differences and establish peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Qatar\u2019s commitment to its role as a \u201creliable international mediator\u201d is not limited by its geographic location, the Qatari emir said.<\/p>\n
Doha has been actively trying to revive talks between the US and Iran to reach a deal that would limit Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities and its ability to potentially develop a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
The US designated Qatar as a major non-NATO ally last year, months after Biden promised to do so. Major non-NATO partners are provided with certain defense, trade and security benefits with the US, but there are no security commitments to these countries.<\/p>\n
Other major non-NATO allies include Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Tunisia.<\/p>\n
And in November, the State Department approved the sale of sophisticated anti-drone systems to Qatar in a deal worth $1 billion. Qatar had requested to buy 10 Fixed Site-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Defeat System (FS-LIDS), according to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Joe Biden thanked Qatar\u2019s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Tuesday for Doha\u2019s help\u00a0securing the release of five Americans\u00a0detained in Iran, according to the Qatari News Agency (QNA). The QNA said the two leaders also discussed strategic ties and ways to bolster them \u201cin a range of fields.\u201d Biden praised Qatar\u2019s \u201cconstructive … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1431,"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions\/1431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.cnbcnews24.live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}