ISTANBUL: Turkey plans to change the name of the street
where the embassy of the United Arab Emirates is located to
Fakhreddin Pasha, the historical figure at the centre of a diplomatic
row caused by a retweet, the state-run Anadolu agency said on Saturday.
UAE
Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahayan retweeted last
week accusations that Ottoman forces led by Fakhreddin Pasha stole money
and manuscripts from Medina in 1916 during World War One when the city
was under Ottoman rule.
The mayor of the Turkish capital
Ankara ordered preparations to change the name of the street where the
UAE mission is located to that of the former commander and one-time
governor of Medina, the news agency said.
Without naming
him, Erdogan suggested on Thursday that the UAE minister was ignorant.
The UAE charge d’affaires in Ankara was also summoned to the Foreign
Ministry over the issue.
UAE officials had no immediate comment on dispute.
The
UAE, a close US ally, sees Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted ruling party as a
friend of Islamist forces which the UAE opposes across the Arab world.
Ties
were further strained by Ankara’s support for Qatar after Saudi Arabia,
the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt imposed sanctions on the Gulf nation in June
over a dispute in which the Arab states accused Doha of supporting
terrorism. Doha denies this.
