UAE Minister: We Want To Move Forward Quickly

By Staff Reporter
Posted on 08/14/20 | News Source: Arutz-7

Anwar Gargash, the United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, on Friday told the Walla! Hebrew language news website that his country wants to implement the normalization agreement with Israel quickly.

"Relations with Israel have progressed slowly," the minister told the website in an exclusive interview, describing the process that led to the decision to advance the agreement. "I remember that an Israeli tennis player would come to visit and there was a whole story with the visa. We understood that not having ties is not a healthy situation. A year or two ago we realized that it is possible to disagree on political issues but still cooperate on many other issues."

Gargash stressed that the announcement of the normalization agreement with Israel is not symbolic and that his country wants to move forward as quickly as possible. "I think the teams will meet as quickly as possible to discuss issues that interest us and interest you," he said. "We are not talking about a slow and gradual process. Our idea is to move forward. I will not surprise you if I say that the issues that interest us are agriculture, food security, cyber defense, tourism, technology. I am sure Israelis also have a list. We are the two largest economies in the region."

Gargash stressed that the step taken by the United Arab Emirates would be a milestone in relations between Israel and the Arab world. "We have to work very hard for this to be a success," he said. "We have seen a lot of milestones in our region that have not been a success. We have already learned in our region that a message itself does not yet become an instant success."

Regarding the Israeli application of sovereignty, which Israel agreed to postpone as part of the agreement with the UAE, Gargash said, “This is a tripartite agreement with a tripartite commitment. We are confident that we will implement our commitment, the United States is also involved and Israel will also fulfill what it has committed to." Read more at Arutz-7