Qatar is set to invest $29 million to bankroll a pay hike for the Syrian public sector, according to a new report from Reuters.
The report states that the move, undertaken with US approval, will provide a “financial lifeline to the new Syrian government”, which is in the midst of a reconstruction process following the toppling of the Assad regime.
Qatari cash is expected to fund a long-promised 400 per cent pay rise for over a million government workers, who have seen their salaries cut in real terms thanks to crushing US economic sanctions and Assad-era corruption.
However, it will only be given to civilian departments, with the interior and defence ministries not included due to American concerns over the continued activity of Islamist militants in the country. The government will then create its own funds to match the investment from Qatar for the exempted departments.
Syria’s new interim president, former Al Qaeda militant Ahmed Al-Sharaa, has already drastically realigned its foreign policy away from Iran and its network of proxies and in favour of the West, particularly Turkey, and the Gulf States.
Yet while Al-Sharaa’s approach is winning acceptance from some of Iran’s opponents – just yesterday he arrived in Paris for his first trip to Europe – it has also triggered alarm in Jerusalem, largely thanks to his increasingly warm overtures to both Turkey and Qatar.
Officials in Israel have long maintained that Qatar is complicit in the funding of anti-Zionist terrorism, while Turkish president Erdoğan has previously called for the Jewish state to be “destroyed”.
And, as the JC reported in February, leading Middle East analyst Professor Ed Husain has claimed that “Damascus is a Qatari project”, suggesting that Doha’s backing of the Al-Sharaa administration is largely in service of its own regional interests.
This concern is unlikely to be eased by the new report, which cites two sources briefed on the negotiations who claim that Qatar will become the explicit financial sponsor of the Syrian civil service.
A Syrian official claimed that US approval was sought before any agreement was reached and that the US Treasury is set to issue a letter in the coming days to confirm that the payments will not be subject to its brutal sanctions regime against Damascus.
The lifting of these sanctions is understood to be Al-Sharaa’s key policy goal, with the jihadi turned politician even reportedly willing to normalised relations with Israel in order to achieve it.
Saudi Arabia is also reported to be keen to deepen it’s financial ties with Syria, having joined with Qatar in paying off the country’s World Bank debts last month. However, both Riyadh and Doha are understood to be wary of making any further investment without the rubber stamp from the White House.
