TEHRAN: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader on Tuesday said theUnited Arab Emirates, by signing an agreement to normalise relations withTehran’s arch-foe Israel, has betrayed the whole Muslim world.
“The UAE betrayed the world of Islam, the Arab nations, the region’scountries, and Palestine,” Khamenei said in a speech, excerpts of whichwere broadcast by state television.
“Of course, this betrayal won’t last long but the stigma will stay withthem,” he added.
In the agreement, only the third such deal it has struck with an Arabcountry, Israel pledged to suspend annexation of Palestinian lands.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that did not mean Israel wasabandoning plans to annex the Jordan Valley and Jewish settlements acrossthe occupied West Bank.
“I hope the Emiratis soon wake up and compensate for what they have done,”Khamenei said.
“The UAE rulers opened the door of the region to the Zionists, and theyhave ignored and normalised the question of Palestine.”
It was Khamenei’s first reaction to the agreement between the UAE andIsrael that US President Donald Trump announced on August 13.
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His remarks came after a US-Israeli delegation landed in Abu Dhabi onMonday on the first direct commercial flight from Tel Aviv.
The Iranian foreign ministry had previously denounced the deal as an act of”strategic stupidity”.
The UAE downgraded its relations with Iran in January 2016 amid risingtensions between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic republic.
Tehran-Riyadh relations deteriorated further last year following a seriesof attacks on tankers in sensitive Gulf waters, which Washington blamed onIran.
Tehran denied the allegation.
Saudi Arabia and Iran, the region’s two leading powers, take opposing sidesin the conflicts in Syria and Yemen. -APP/AFP
