Arab-Iranian relations can’t be “built on confrontations,” senior UAE official says

A top adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates decried “confrontations and conflict” in relations between Iran and its Arab neighbors and renewed a call for a negotiated “political solution” to the US-Israeli war with Iran. Anwar Gargash made the comments in a post on X shortly after the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that he made a secret trip to the UAE during the war. “We did not seek this war, and we worked sincerely to avoid it,” Gargash posted to X. “Arab-Iranian relations in the Gulf cannot be built on confrontations and conflicts in a region whose peoples are bound by deep-rooted geographical and historical ties.” He added that defending the UAE is “a sacred duty” and that the Persian Gulf country would “protect its sovereignty.” But, he said, the UAE’s priority remains achieving political solutions. “As the world follows the crucial visit by the U.S. President to China and what it may signal in terms of regional impacts, the United Arab Emirates continues to affirm in this context the importance of a political solution through a path to negotiations, which it continues to abide by in all its communications,” Gargash posted. Shortly before his post, Israel publicly acknowledged for the first time a trip by Netanyahu to the UAE. On that “covert visit” during the war with Iran, he met with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Netanyahu’s office said. The visit “resulted in a historic breakthrough” in relations between the two countries, the office added, without mentioning when the trip took place or describing the reported breakthrough. The UAE did not immediately comment on the Israeli announcement. CNN has reached out to the UAE for comment. The post Arab-Iranian relations can’t be “built on confrontations,” senior UAE official says appeared first on Egypt Independent.