Daily Times

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country could suspend diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates after a landmark deal between Israel and the Gulf state.

“I have given the necessary instructions to my foreign minister. We may either suspend diplomatic ties or recall our ambassador because we stand with the Palestinian people. We have not let Palestine be defeated or let it be defeated,” said Erdogan.

The president said that Saudi Arabia has also been taking wrong steps in the region, as he also criticised Egypt for cooperating with Israel and Greece.

In the deal announced by the US, Israel pledged to suspend its planned annexation of parts of the West Bank in exchange for a normalisation of ties with the UAE.

Turkish Foreign Ministry said the Palestinian people and administration were right to react strongly against the agreement, which recasts the order of Middle East politics from the Palestinian issue to the fight against Iran.

“History and the conscience of the region’s peoples will not forget and never forgive this hypocritical behavior of the UAE, betraying the Palestinian cause for the sake of its narrow interests,” the ministry said in a statement.

“It is extremely worrying that the UAE should, with a unilateral action, try and do away with the (2002) Arab Peace Plan developed by the Arab League. It is not in the slightest credible that this three-way declaration should be presented as supporting the Palestinian cause.”

Notably, US President Donald Trump helped broker the accord. The deal makes UAE the third Arab country to establish full relations with Israel, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.