Last update - 00:00 01/12/2006
Haniyeh is only Mideast leader to merit reception by Qatari emir
By The Associated Press
DOHA, Qatar - Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, one of several Mideast leaders who arrived here to attend the opening ceremony of the 15th Asian Games on Friday evening, was the only one to be received at the airport by Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the country's official news agency said.
The Qatar News Agency did not say why Haniyeh, who is on his first tour abroad since his Hamas-led government took office in March, did not say why the other leaders were not welcomed by the emir himself upon arrival.
Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Kuwait's Prime Minister Nasser al-Hamad Al Sabah were also among the leaders who arrived in the Gulf country, the news agency reported.
Later in the day, the emir visited Ahmadinejad and Saleh at the hotel they
were staying in to discuss mutual relations, said QNA, which did not
elaborate.
Qatar, which has close ties with America, hosts the U.S. military command running the Iraq war at the sprawling Al-Udeid Airbase.
But Washington considers Iran and Hamas enemies of the United States. The U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist organization, and U.S. President George W. Bush declared Iran and North Korea - along with Saddam Hussein's Iraq - as members of an "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address.
Syria, Iran's closest ally in the Mideast, also does not have good relations with the United States, which accuses it of supporting terror groups.
During the last Asian Games in 2002, Iran won eight gold medals, 14 silver and 14 bronze. Kuwait won eight medals, of which two were gold, Syria won three bronze, while Yemen and the Palestinians each took home one bronze medal.