Erdogan: Turkey may suspend ties with UAE over Israel deal

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey was considering closing its embassy in Abu Dhabi and suspending diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates over its accord to normalize ties with Israel.

Erdogan was speaking to reporters in Istanbul after the Turkish Foreign Ministry said history will never forgive the “hypocritical behavior” of the UAE in agreeing such a deal.

The 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.”

US President Donald Trump helped broker the accord.

Turkey has diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, but relations have been strained for years. In 2010 Israeli commandos killed 10 Turkish activists trying to breach a blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

The UAE becomes the third Arab country to establish full relations with Israel, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.