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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday visited the United Arab Emirates for the first time in nearly a decade to revive relations that were long strained by regional disputes.
He was greeted in the capital Abu Dhabi by Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the UAE’s de facto ruler, who had travelled to Ankara in November on the first high-level visit to Turkey since 2012.
That trip “marked the beginning of a new era in relations”, Erdogan said at Istanbul airport before leaving for his two-day visit. “We are planning to take steps that will bring relations back to the level they deserve.”
Ties had been strained as Turkey and the oil-rich Emirates backed opposing sides in the Libyan civil war, and sparred over issues such as gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
Relations were particularly tense after Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain in 2017 cut all links with Qatar, a close ally of Turkey. Those relations were restored in January 2021.
The Turkish president’s UAE visit is his first since 2013, when he was prime minister, and his first as head of state.
To greet Erdogan on his trip — which will take him to the Expo 2020 Dubai world fair Tuesday — the host country lit up the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, in the red and white of the Turkish flag.
Erdogan and Sheikh Mohammed oversaw the signing of 13 cooperation agreements and memoranda of understanding, including a letter of intent on cooperation in the defence industries, according to the UAE’s official WAM news agency.
Other areas of cooperation included health, technology, climate action and crisis and disaster management, among others, the news agency said.
‘Shared vision’
The crown prince said the UAE was keen to cooperate with Turkey “to confront a number of common challenges that the region is witnessing” through…
Source : france24
