The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel reached a deal on Thursday, in which they’ve agreed to normalise relations and establish diplomatic ties. The deal has secured the Israeli commitment to stop the further annexation of West Bank, the land sought by Palestinians for their future state.
While several nations, including France, UK, Egypt, Bahrain have welcomed the development, Turkey and Iran have condemned the deal.
Iran called it an act of “strategic stupidity from Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv, which will undoubtedly strengthen the resistance axis in the region.”
“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,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday, AFP reported.
Iran termed it as “Abu Dhabi’s shameful move” and warned that “the government of the Emirates and other accompanying states must accept responsibility for all the consequences.”
In an indirect reference to its arch-rival Saudi Arabia, Iran called on rulers harming the people of Palestine and Yemen “from their glass palaces” to start correctly distinguishing “between their friends and foes,” AFP reported.
Similarly, Turkey condemned the deal as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
“While betraying the Palestinian cause to serve its narrow interests, the UAE is trying to present this as a kind of act of self-sacrifice for Palestine,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, AFP reported.
“History and the conscience of the people living in the region will not forget and never forgive this hypocritical behaviour,” it said.
The ministry further added that it was “extremely worrying that the UAE, through its unilateral action, put an end to the Arab Peace Initiative developed by the Arab League and backed by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.”
With the deal, UAE will be the first Gulf Arab nation and the third Arab nation, after Egypt and Jordon, to establish diplomatic ties with Israel.
