UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdulla Bin Zayed Al Nahyan visits Turkey -

Istanbul: Sheikh Abdulla Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) visited Turkey and met President Erdogan. Discussions were held regarding the cooperation between UAE and Turkey during the meeting. Both the countries have decided to increase cooperation between them on all the levels. An announcement to take the bilateral trade between the two countries to $10 billion from $8 billion in the coming times was also made. But the issue of cooperation being established between Turkey and UAE and Saudi Arabia is a bigger topic of discussion than this trade cooperation.

Over the last few years, Turkey has consistently showered severe criticism on UAE and Saudi, the influential countries in the Middle East. Turkey has criticised that these countries leading the Islamic world are not discharging their responsibility appropriately. UAE and Saudi, along with the other Middle East countries, had been hurt given the vitriolic criticism by Turkey. This has affected the bilateral relations between these countries and Turkey. But Turkish President Erdogan, who has the ambition to lead the Islamic world, never paid any heed to this.

But the situation has changed completely in recent times. The Turkish relations with the United States and European countries also have been strained along with the Middle East countries. This has had a detrimental effect on the Turkish economy. The slide in the Turkish economy is considered to be a jolt to the Erdogan regime. Cautioned by these developments, the Turkish President made significant changes to his foreign policy. The Turkish President re-established the extinct bilateral relations with Israel.

This change in the policies of Turkey, which spewed fire on the countries like UAE and others for signing the Abraham agreement with Israel, becomes noteworthy. This could become a significant factor in the relations between Turkey and UAE. The significant change in the Turkish policies regarding Israel and Middle East countries and the response received by Turkey from these countries shows that the local politics is gaining momentum in the Middle East region. In the past, Turkey had given more importance to its relations with Iran than its relations with the Middle East countries. Therefore, this change in the Turkish policies is drawing the attention of the observers.