Turkey may suspend diplomatic ties with the UAE and withdrawing its ambassador after an agreement between the country and Israel to normalise ties was revealed, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also said history would never forgive the UAE’s “hypocritical behaviour” in agreeing such a deal, which recasts the order of Middle East politics. Palestinian leaders denounced the announcement as a “stab in the back” to their cause.
“The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached. Now, Palestine is either closing or withdrawing its embassy. The same thing is valid for us now,” Erdogan said on Friday. “I told him (the Foreign Minister) we may also take a step in the direction of suspending diplomatic ties with the Abu Dhabi leadership or pulling back our ambassador.”
Under the US-brokered deal, the first between Israel and a Gulf Arab nation, Israel agreed to suspend its planned annexation of areas of the occupied West Bank. The deal makes UAE the third Arab country to establish full relations with Israel, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.