When Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the United Arab Emirates’ de facto leader, shook up the Middle East by agreeing to normalise relations with Israel, just two states in the region cried foul.
Iran was predictably first up. Regime hardliners in the theocracy often call for the destruction of the Jewish state and deride the UAE as an American stooge. But arguably the harshest reaction came from Turkey, despite it being the first majority Muslim country to recognise Israel seven decades ago.
After Ankara raged that “the conscience of the region’s people” would “never forgive this hypocritical behaviour,” president Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to withdraw Turkey’s ambassador to the UAE. Abu Dhabi had anticipated the verbal salvo from both countries. But it was Turkey’s response that would have irked most.
During the past 18 months, the UAE has sought to reduce tensions with Tehran, and Emirati officials insisted September’s Israel deal had nothing to do with Iran, saying Abu Dhabi wanted to use diplomacy and de-escalation to resolve its issues with the Islamic republic. But just as Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, has sought to cool the temperature with one nemesis, the UAE’s rivalry with Turkey has moved to a whole new level.
Over 10 months of accusation and counter accusation, it has become the Middle East’s most toxic feud, pitting two of the region’s most powerful, assertive leaders against each other; one of the US’s closest Arab partners against a Nato member. And it has reverberated from the oil-rich Gulf to the Horn of Africa and the front lines of Libya’s civil war, further fuelling tensions in the eastern Mediterranean.
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