The Supreme Federal Council of the United Arab Emirates has elected Crown Prince Mohamed bin this Saturday Zayed al Nahyan as the new president of the country following the death on Friday of his stepbrother Khalifa at 73 years of age.
“Mohamed bin Zayed is the shadow of Khalifa and his extension in us. We congratulate him, we swear allegiance to him and our people swear allegiance to him,” the Council declared in a statement collected by the official WAM news agency.
the crown prince he was considered the ‘de facto’ leader of the country following the stroke suffered by his predecessor in 2014, who has since practically retired from public life.
Mohamed bin Zayed, 61, is credited, for example, with driving normalization talks with Israel in late 2020.
Among the first authorities to react is the president of the United States, Joe Biden, who has declared himself determined to continue the fruitful relationship between the two countries.
“I congratulate my old friend, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, on his election as president of the United Arab Emirates,” Biden said in a statement showing his willingness to “honor the memory of the late president by continuing to strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries in the coming years”.
Biden has declared the Emirates an “essential partner” and hopes to work with the new president “to continue building together from this extraordinary foundation to further strengthen the ties between our countries and peoples.”
