Sheikh Mansour visits Riyadh in push to mend UAE-Saudi Arabia rift
Meeting is first since long-simmering tensions erupted into the open over Yemen in January
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates travelled to Riyadh for talks with Saudi Arabia in a sign that the Gulf powerhouses are seeking to ease a rift that has rippled across the Middle East and complicated efforts to resolve the region’s crises.
The meeting between Sheikh Mansour, the UAE’s vice-president, and Saudi defence minister Prince Khalid bin Salman marked the first public visit to the kingdom by a senior Emirati official since a long-simmering dispute between the traditional allies erupted into the open in January.
It comes as Riyadh faces a fresh crisis after Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen reignited a more than decade-long war with Saudi Arabia, declaring a blockade on its ports, attacking tankers and firing barrages of missiles and drones at oil facilities and other infrastructure in the kingdom.
The rebels have also launched an offensive against Saudi-backed Yemeni forces, advancing southwards along the Red Sea coast and tightening their grip on the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
“There is a realisation that the Saudi-Emirati rift has to be sorted out,” said Nadim Koteich, an Abu Dhabi-based media executive and policy adviser. “If the pre-existing context is that both countries are on a collision course, other states in the region will pick sides and it will complicate every single crisis, from Yemen to Sudan to Syria, Iran and Lebanon.”
The UAE was Saudi Arabia’s main military partner when Riyadh led an Arab coalition that intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015 to fight the Houthis and support the internationally recognised Yemeni government.
But differences over Yemen burst into the open at the end of last year when Saudi Arabia accused the UAE of backing an advance by a Yemeni secessionist faction in provinces bordering the kingdom, which Riyadh said threatened its national security.
Saudi forces then bombed a shipment of weaponry and vehicles that it said Abu Dhabi had sent to the faction, the Southern Transitional Council. Within days, the UAE pulled its remaining troops out of the country.
The rift over Yemen and other regional issues, including the civil war in Sudan and Syria, triggered the biggest rupture in years between the neighbours and undermined efforts for Arab states to put on a united front as the US-Israeli war against Iran plunged the region into crisis.
It also sparked concerns among businesses that it would spill over into trade ties between the Arab world’s two largest economies, with some companies complaining of problems receiving payments from Saudi banks to Emirati banks.
The UAE withdrew in April from Opec, of which Saudi Arabia is the de facto leader, saying the decision was based on energy policy. But analysts viewed the move as a further sign of the deepening dispute.
The renewed Houthi offensive appears to have injected momentum into efforts to repair the rift as Saudi Arabia seeks support from its allies to bolster its air defences and manage the maritime threat posed by the rebels.
Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator familiar with Riyadh’s thinking, said Prince Khalid’s invitation to Sheikh Mansour was “a big gesture and it shows there’s more co-ordination, particularly on Yemen”.
“I don’t think they [the UAE] will come back into the war, but Riyadh wants them to manage the southern factions so they don’t undermine the anti-Houthi front,” Shihabi said.
Prince Khalid is the brother of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Sheikh Mansour is a brother of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE president.
The UAE was a notable absentee when Saudi Arabia announced in August that 13 regional countries had agreed to take part in a maritime task force to protect shipping in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb.
Koteich said Yemen was “too strategic to be left alone to fall apart again”, but added that the Emiratis would not “rush back in”.
“A clear agenda is needed . . . but this is a great step in the right direction,” he said.