UAE SAYS ‘AMAZED’ BY JOE BIDEN’S SYRIA REMARKS

Abu Dhabi, 11 Dzulhijjah 1435/5 October 2014 (MINA) – The United Arab Emirates has expressed surprise after US Vice President Joe Biden suggested the Gulf state had armed and financed oppositions in Syria, along with other regional powers.

Biden’s remarks were “amazing and ignore the role of the Emirates in the fight against extremism and terrorism,” the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Mohammad Gargash, said in a statement carried late on Saturday by the official WAM news agency.

Gargash asked for Biden to clarify the comments, which he said had given “a false impression about the role of the UAE… at a time when it is actually supporting… efforts to overcome” the armed groups, Al Jazeera quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

The UAE is one of a handful of Arab allies taking part in US-led air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group in Syria. The others are Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

Biden has already apologised to Turkey over the comments suggesting that it was one of the countries in the region that had armed and financed ISIL in Syria.

“The vice president apologised for any implication that Turkey or other allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth of ISIL or other violent extremists in Syria,” Biden’s office said on Saturday.

It came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted furiously to comments Biden made at Harvard University on Thursday in which he criticised allies in Turkey and the Arab world for supporting Sunni armed groups in  Syria, including ISIL and the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. (T/P001/P3)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)