Anwar Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, says his country wants to implement normalization agreement with Israel quickly.
UAEAbraham Accords
Anwar Gargash, the United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, on Friday told the Walla! Hebrew language news website that his country wants to implement the normalization agreement with Israel quickly.
“Relations with Israel have progressed slowly,” the minister told the website in an exclusive interview, describing the process that led to the decision to advance the agreement. “I remember that an Israeli tennis player would come to visit and there was a whole story with the visa. We understood that not having ties is not a healthy situation. A year or two ago we realized that it is possible to disagree on political issues but still cooperate on many other issues.”
Gargash stressed that the announcement of the normalization agreement with Israel is not symbolic and that his country wants to move forward as quickly as possible. “I think the teams will meet as quickly as possible to discuss issues that interest us and interest you,” he said. “We are not talking about a slow and gradual process. Our idea is to move forward. I will not surprise you if I say that the issues that interest us are agriculture, food security, cyber defense, tourism, technology. I am sure Israelis also have a list. We are the two largest economies in the region.”
Gargash stressed that the step taken by the United Arab Emirates would be a milestone in relations between Israel and the Arab world. “We have to work very hard for this to be a success,” he said. “We have seen a lot of milestones in our region that have not been a success. We have already learned in our region that a message itself does not yet become an instant success.”
Regarding the Israeli application of sovereignty, which Israel agreed to postpone as part of the agreement with the UAE, Gargash said, “This is a tripartite agreement with a tripartite commitment. We are confident that we will implement our commitment, the United States is also involved and Israel will also fulfill what it has committed to.”
The Emirati minister explained that the UAE opposes the sovereignty move because it undermines the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I think we bought a lot of time,” he stressed. “I do not know how long. But I do not think it is a short-term suspension. You are stopping something to do something else. Now we are encouraging the Palestinians to return to negotiations. It is impossible to stop the time bomb but at the same time do nothing about resuming talks.”
Finally, Gargash said that Israelis dreaming about visiting the UAE could do so very soon.
“I hope that soon Israeli tourists will be able to come to the UAE. Like I said – we do not want to move forward gradually. We want to get going. We need to get going and I hope it happens soon mainly because Israel is taking part in the Dubai Expo and it is very important that we see Israeli visitors coming to the exhibition,” he said.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)
Content retrieved from: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285303.