The United Arab Emirates could see a “quantum leap in the relations of the UAE and Turkey,” Al-Ain media reported in the UAE on Monday. It could open a “new page,” said Turkey’s Anadolu media. Both reports indicate the governments’ official line on the important visit by Turkey’s president this week to the UAE.This is because Turkey’s leading AKP Party and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had in the past been harshly critical of the UAE. This even culminated in Turkey threatening to break relations with the UAE over the Abraham Accords. Turkey didn’t want the UAE and Israel to make peace. Now Turkey appears to be seeking out Abu Dhabi’s friendship.The move comes as Turkey has felt isolated after former US President Donald Trump left office. During the Trump era, the AKP Party had close allies and lobbyists in Washington who had influence in the administration. Erdogan and Trump spoke often on the phone. Turkey felt empowered and began to threaten all of the countries in the Middle East. It embarked on a program of renditions and kidnapping dissidents abroad. It also took Syrian refugees and paid them to be mercenaries in Libya.
It recruited Syrians to extremist groups and unleashed them to ethnically cleanse areas in Syria, targeting the Kurdish and Yazidi minorities and Christians. All of this received a green light from the former US administration, including the invasion of Afrin and Tel Abyad. Turkey attempted to interfere in US elections, and its media was harshly critical of then-candidate Joe Biden.With Biden in power, Turkey has shifted radically from confrontation to reconciliation, putting out claims it will reconcile with Egypt, Israel and the Gulf. It continues to have difficult relations with Greece but has backed down on its naval harassment of the country that was common in 2020.Now, the UAE also sees a silver lining to the new relationship. One article from Al-Ain media argued, “Erdogan’s visit is a new station on the road to strengthening relations between the two countries, as it is expected to contribute to enhancing the volume of trade between the two countries, opening the way for new investments, in addition to supporting security, stability and peace and enhancing regional prosperity.” That is a big menu of things that are set to change if this visit goes off as planned. How did this come about?The report says that Erdogan arrived in the UAE on Monday and that the visit comes after the “historic visit of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, to Turkey in November.”Erdogan has said that he looks forward to a new era of friendship that will last some 50 years. During the UAE leader’s visit to Turkey, “the foundations and rules were laid to start a new phase of partnership and promising relations between the two countries, in the interest of supporting the security and stability of the region and achieving prosperity and development for the two countries.”The expected summit between Al Nahyan and Erdogan during the visit is the second in three months, while the talks that will take place during the same period will be the fourth, after they had phone talks in early December and February 8, the report says. The two visits represent the desire by the countries to work together. Turkey will also showcase its section of the Expo 2020 Dubai. Erdogan’s visit to the UAE is his first outside the country after recovering from COVID-19, the report says. Turkey seems to want to accelerate the pace of rapprochement and cooperation with the UAE. This is a big shift since Turkey is also close to Qatar and together they have mobilized lobbies in the West, as well as willing media that collaborate with them, to push anti-UAE stories over the years.THERE ARE groups that have emerged that are allegedly backed by Qatar to push “human rights concerns” regarding the UAE. Media backed by Qatar and Turkey have often slandered the UAE over the last several years. Now the shift is coming and it appears all criticism has stopped. The people paid to lobby against the UAE may also be getting the message to stop pitching op-eds to Western media slamming the UAE.For the last several years, one message being spread was that the UAE was “authoritarian” in contrast to Turkey’s support of “democracy” in the region. This was largely a nonsensical narrative because Turkey is run by an authoritarian regime and has arrested journalists and dissidents. Nevertheless, this was a narrative pushed in the West to try to harm the UAE’s reputation. Now this propaganda may be reduced as Ankara shifts its media and quietly tells its friends in the West to quiet down.