DUBAI: A senior UAE diplomat said on Wednesday the Arab
world would not be led by Turkey, the Gulf State’s first comment on
Ankara since a quarrel broke out last week over a retweet by the Emirati
foreign minister that President Tayyip Erdogan called an insult.
Anwar
Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Arab
Emirates, said there was a need for Arab countries to rally around the
“Arab axis” of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
“The sectarian and
partisan view is not an acceptable alternative, and the Arab world will
not be led by Tehran or Ankara,” he wrote on his official Twitter page.
Last
week, Turkey summoned the charge d’affaires at the UAE embassy in
Ankara, after UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahayan
shared a tweet that accused Turkish troops of looting the holy city of
Madina a century ago. Erdogan himself lashed out: “Some impertinent man
sinks low and goes as far as accusing our ancestors of thievery ... What
spoiled this man? He was spoiled by oil, by the money he has,” the
Turkish leader said at an awards ceremony.
Turkey’s
state-run Anadolu newspaper reported on Saturday that Turkey planned to
rename the street where the UAE embassy is located in Ankara after
Fakhreddin Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman Turkish troops at Madina
in 1916.
