More than six years after downgrading its diplomatic ties with Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Sunday announced that its ambassador will resume his duties in Tehran "in the coming days.”
In a statement, the UAE Foreign Ministry said Ambassador Saif Mohammad Al Zaabi will be heading to Tehran in the coming days to assume the new diplomatic assignment.
The ministry said the move was in line with efforts to bolster bilateral ties with Iran "to achieve the common interests of the two countries and the wider region.”
The announcement comes exactly a week after Badr Abdullah Al-Manikh took over as the new ambassador of Kuwait to Iran.
The new Kuwaiti envoy submitted his credentials to Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Tehran on August 14.
The two Arab countries downgraded their relations with Iran and recalled their ambassadors following the storming of Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran in January 2016 in the wake of the execution of the prominent Shia cleric Nimr Al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia.
In a statement at the time, the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry termed it a "flagrant breach of international conventions and violation of Iran's international commitment over security and safety of diplomatic missions on its land.”
The UAE Foreign Ministry, in a separate statement, said the "exceptional step" was taken "in light of the continuous Iranian intervention in internal Gulf and Arab affairs and that has reached unprecedented levels in the recent period.”
