Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

MILITARY

France denies war games should provoke Iran

France concluded on Wednesday two weeks of war games with the United Arab Emirates, which officials from both sides insisted were not related to regional tensions involving Iran.

Published: 2 May 2012 15:34 CEST

The exercises, held every four years, came after a simmering row over ownership of three Gulf islands contested by the Emirates and Iran, and the United States’ deployment of cutting-edge F-22 fighter jets to the UAE.

However, French and Emirati military officials insisted on Wednesday that the “Gulf 2012” war games had been scheduled years ago, and that they carry no political messages to any side.

“There is no relation or link between military training taking place and political events, swings, or instability in the region,” said Major-General Pilot Rashad Salem al-Saadi, head of the UAE Joint Command and Staff College.

The commander of French forces during the war games, Vice Admiral Marin Giller, also said the exercises had “no link to anything happening in the region.”

The exercises were attended by Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed al-Nahayan, who is also the deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces.

They took place in the western Al-Hamra desert region near the border with Saudi Arabia and shores of the Gulf, about 250 kilometres (160 miles) from the coast of Iran.

Tehran had in the past threatened to retaliate to a possible military attack over its nuclear drive by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which most Gulf oil is exported.

Tensions have been growing across the region as Western powers have been pressing Iran over its nuclear programme.

While the issue is currently the subject of talks, the next round of which will take place in Baghdad on May 23, Israel and the United States have both warned military action remains an option should diplomacy fail.

Washington has sided with the UAE in the dispute over the Gulf islands of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb.

More than 4,500 troops – 1,800 of them from France – took part in the military exercises, which were previously held in 1996, 2000, 2005 and 2008.  

During the manoeuvres, troops simulated a war pitting the UAE and its ally against a neighbouring state which has invaded the Gulf country.

“We are able to work together (in the) air, land and sea and also have combined teams with Emirati and French officers and soldiers,” Giller told reporters.

“It went very well.”

France has bolstered its military ties with the Gulf state since it set up its first permanent military base in Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest and largest of the UAE’s seven emirates.

The base, which hosts around 500 French army, navy and air force personnel, was opened by President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009.

France is a leading military supplier to the UAE, and the two countries are linked by a 1995 defence pact.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

NATO

Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he would back Sweden's Nato candidacy if the European Union resumes long-stalled membership talks with Ankara.

Published: 10 July 2023 12:35 CEST
Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

“First, open the way to Turkey’s membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland,” Erdogan told a televised media appearance, before departing for the NATO summit in Lithuania.

Erdogan said “this is what I told” US President Joe Biden when the two leaders spoke by phone on Sunday.

Turkey first applied to be a member of the European Economic Community — a predecessor to the EU — in 1987. It became an EU candidate country in 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.

The talks stalled in 2016 over European concerns about Turkish human rights violations.

“I would like to underline one reality. Turkey has been waiting at the EU’s front door for 50 years,” Erdogan said. “Almost all the NATO members are EU members. I now am addressing these countries, which are making Turkey wait for more than 50 years, and I will address them again in Vilnius.”

Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, is due to meet Erdogan at 5pm on Monday in a last ditch attempt to win approval for the country’s Nato bid ahead of Nato’s summit in Vilnius on July 11th and 12th. 

Turkey has previously explained its refusal to back Swedish membership as motivated by the country’s harbouring of people connected to the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group, and the Gülen movement, who Erdogan blames for an attempted coup in 2016. 

More recently, he has criticised Sweden’s willingness to allow pro-Kurdish groups to protest in Swedish cities and allow anti-Islamic protesters to burn copies of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.

In a sign of the likely reaction of counties which are members both of Nato and the EU, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the two issues should not be connected. 

“Sweden meets all the requirements for Nato membership,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin. “The other question is one that is not connected with it and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”

Malena Britz, Associate Professor in Political Science at the Swedish Defence University, told public broadcaster SVT that Erdogan’s new gambit will have caught Sweden’s negotiators, the EU, and even Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg off guard. 

“I think both the member states and Stoltenberg had expected this to be about Nato and not about what the EU is getting up to,” she said. “That’s not something Nato even has any control over. If Erdogan sticks to the idea that Turkey isn’t going to let Sweden into Nato until Turkey’s EU membership talks start again, then Sweden and Nato will need to think about another solution.” 

Aras Lindh, a Turkey expert at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs, agreed that the move had taken Nato by surprise. 

“This came suddenly. I find it hard to believe that anything like this will become reality, although there could possibly be some sort of joint statement from the EU countries. I don’t think that any of the EU countries which are also Nato members were prepared for this issue.”

SHOW COMMENTS