Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he is considering breaking off all diplomatic ties with the UAE after the Gulf nation announced a landmark deal establishing formal relations with Israel.
Erdogan harshly criticized the UAE for its deal with Israel, as most Arab nations have historically refrained from maintaining formal diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv in protest against its occupation of the West Bank.
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.
"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," Reuters quoted the ministry as saying 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."
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.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates on August 13 established full diplomatic relations in a U.S.-brokered deal that required Israel to halt its plan to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians.
The historic deal delivered a key foreign policy victory to President Donald Trump as he seeks re-election and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.
The UAE becomes the third Arab country to establish full relations with Israel, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
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