Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country’s differences with Saudi Arabia and the UAE “have been overcome”, describing them as “differences within the same family.”
Erdogan said that Turkey has “in common with Saudi Arabia and the UAE”, and expressed his confidence that “the path started by Turkey towards the two countries will make very important contributions, both at the commercial and political levels,” during an event on the occasion of Youth and Sports Day and the commemoration of the founder of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in the presidential complex in the capital, Ankara, according to the Turkish “Anatolia” news agency.
He added, “We have overcome the differences with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, and we have drawn up plans for the rapid development of bilateral relations in the fields of trade, industry, defense industries, culture and tourism, and we are taking steps to do so,” he said.
The Turkish president indicated that he recently visited the UAE to offer his condolences on the death of the late President of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, and Erdogan said that relations with Saudi Arabia are also “moving in a more positive direction.”
Erdogan had said, in previous statements after his visit to Saudi Arabia last month, that Ankara and Riyadh “agreed to advance joint economic cooperation,” adding that he had made a “successful visit to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz,” according to the agency. Anatolia”.
It is noteworthy that the last visit of the Turkish president to Saudi Arabia was about 5 years ago, in June 2017, before relations became tense amid the crisis of boycotting Qatar, and the tension was exacerbated by the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. .