Israel opens embassy in United Arab Emirates
Israel announced on Sunday the opening of its diplomatic representation in the United Arab Emirates. It will be headed by Eitan Naeh, who will be the head of the mission which, in addition to the embassy in Abu Dhabi, will include a consulate general in Dubai. The announcement was made through Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The news follows a series of steps following the normalisation of relations between the two countries in August last year. Shortly after the announcement, airlines began operating between the UAE and Israel, and several agreements, mainly economic, have been signed in recent months.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that through this diplomatic presence, the aim is to realise the full potential of relations between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv. Some of the areas in which the two countries have been working to strengthen their relations are agri-food, tourism and high technology, which includes a leading sector in the Emirates, such as renewable energies like solar energy.
Like Israel, the United Arab Emirates has announced the establishment of its embassy in the Israeli capital, Tel Aviv, although no names or further information has yet been released. The UAE is one of the countries that have recently established relations with Israel, along with Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, in a radical shift in Middle East dynamics sponsored by the United States and the Donald Trump administration.
The man chosen to head the Israeli diplomatic delegation, Eitan Naeh, was previously stationed in Turkey, from where he was expelled in 2018 following the breakdown of relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv.
After Joe Biden's arrival at the White House, it remains to be seen whether he maintains the same diplomatic line and manages to attract other countries to diplomatic normalisation with Israel, as Trump assured that there were several other countries that could announce this soon. Oman is one of the candidates according to many analysts, although all eyes are on Saudi Arabia, which has repeated on several occasions that this news is not going to happen.
Israel has also announced that it will soon open an embassy in the Bahraini capital, Manama, thus extending its commercial and diplomatic relations in the Gulf, pending further moves.
