UAE’s formula for stable, prosperous region
The UAE is regularly cited worldwide as an effective example of crisis management
Fifty years after the inception of probably the only successful union in the Arabs’ modern history, the UAE continues to achieve a milestone after another, in almost all fields.
A small country with modest resources just few decades back, the UAE today is a key economic player internationally and the second largest Arab economy, after Saudi Arabia, with a GDP of $421.1 billion (Dh1. 5 trillion). This young nation is one of the world’s top foreign aid donors.
The UAE is regularly cited worldwide as an effective example of crisis management such as was the case of handling the coronavirus pandemic.
When it comes to foreign policy, the UAE has become in the past two decades a leading player in this region that has been working through active diplomacy and its principles of open dialogue and friendly relations with other key powers to maintain security, stability and prosperity in a regain engulfed by conflicts and wars for the entire past 100 years.
Great accomplishments
With these great accomplishments, come great challenges. “There are many challenges that we must deal with to maintain this success, especially since we live in a changing world and a complex region,” says Dr. Anwar Gargash, Diplomatic Adviser to the UAE President. “The secret of the UAE’s success,” he added “lies in its ability to identify challenges, deal with them, and turn them into opportunities.”
Gargash on Thursday gave a lecture, organised by Majlis Mohammad Bin Zayed, under the title ‘Security and Stability in Our Changing World: A UAE Perspective’, at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
To protect and grow these remarkable achievements, the UAE’s formula for the coming decades, Gargash pointed out, “is based primarily on a strong united home front with a strong, efficient and professional military, establishing strong partnerships [regionally and globally], and focusing on economic development.”
Therefore, the UAE will continue to strengthen its relations with its strategic Arab depth in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League. And it will pursue the best relations with neighbouring Iran as well as Turkey and support the Palestinians’ rights through the continued support for the Abraham Accords.
In a rapidly changing world that is increasingly becoming multipolar, the UAE and its regional partners need to work hand in hand to ensure stability and prosperity and realise the aspirations of all peoples of this region — by rejecting the use of force in regional relations, rejecting the role of armed militias, and fostering cooperation and building regional platforms to strengthen economic and political cooperation.
This is the blueprint of the UAE’s foreign policy in the coming decades, a formula that seek a prosperous region that will eventually discard past disputes in favour of constructive cooperation for the sake of today’s and future generations.