Turkey, Iran slams UAE for establishing ties with Israel

ANKARA/TEHRAN: The United Arab Emirates has become the first Gulf Arab country to reach a deal on establishing bilateral relations with Israel.

The so-called ‘Abraham Agreement’, announced by United States President Donald Trump, secures an Israeli commitment to halt further annexation of Palestinian lands in occupied West Bank.

Turkey said history and the collective conscience of people in the Middle East will not forget and never forgive the “hypocritical behaviour” of the UAE in agreeing to normalise ties with Israel.

The UAE was the first Gulf Arab state and the third Arab nation – after Egypt and Jordan – to announce bilateral ties with Israel.

The Turkish foreign ministry said on Friday the Palestinian people and administration were right to react strongly against the deal.

“The UAE, which is pursuing secret ambitions over a US plan that is stillborn, null and void, ignores the willpower of Palestine,” said a ministry statement.

Turkey expressed serious concern over the UAE’s aim to unilaterally abolish the 2002 Arab Peace Plan, which envisioned a normalisation of relations between the Arab world and Israel in exchange for a full withdrawal by Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories.

“With that being the case, there is no credibility in presenting the trilateral declaration [between the US, UAE and Israel] as a support to the Palestinian cause.”

Iran has strongly condemned the agreement between Israel and the UAE to normalise ties, calling it an act of “strategic stupidity” that will only strengthen the Tehran-backed “axis of resistance”.

The Iranian foreign ministry denounced the deal as an act of “strategic stupidity from Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv”.

“The oppressed people of Palestine and all the free nations of the world will never forgive the normalising of relations with the criminal Israeli occupation regime and the complicity in its crimes,” a ministry statement said.

“This is stabbing the Palestinians in the back and will strengthen the regional unity against the Zionist regime.”

Iran’s Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated to the country’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the deal between Israel and the UAE on normalising ties was “shameful”.