Diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are at risk of deteriorating over the backing of opposing factions in a regional war.
During a recent visit in Washington, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, reportedly asked US President Donald Trump to pressure Abu Dhabi over its alleged support ofthe paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan. When the war in Sudan broke out in April 2023, Saudi Arabia supported the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces. In the meantime, they have switched to mediating between the parties.
The conflict in Sudan has become the largest humanitarian and displacement crisis in the world. And the United Arab Emirates continue to be accused of backing and equipping the Rapid Support Forces militarily.
Instead of escalating the situation, UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, or MBZ, refrained from publicly commenting on the Saudis’ asking Trump for help. He instead reiterated that the UAE was not involved in the raging war in Sudan.
“What is taking place is… the natural evolution of a very close partnership between two increasingly confident regional powers,” Kristian Alexander, senior fellow at the think tank Rabdan Security and Defense Institute in Abu Dhabi, told DW.
In his view, both countries pursue ambitious national transformation agendas and exercise greater strategic autonomy.
“This does occasionally produce visible differences in policy,” Alexander said.
Historic ties between Saudis and UAE
When Mohammed bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s defense minister in 2015 at age 29, the United Arab Emirates was already under the de facto leadership of 54-year-old Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ).
“MBZ saw in MBS the opportunity to craft a new, strategic alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” Cinzia Bianco, a Gulf Research Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told DW.
She explained that MBZ did not share many common viewpoints with former Saudi King Abdallah, who passed away in 2015.
“MBZ supported MBS on his way to become Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto leader in 2018,” she said, adding that “when you craft such a strong and close relationship, it is normal that even the smaller differences can seem huge.”
Since 2018, Bianco has been observing several instances where divergences were peaking.
“But whenever the situation was about to implode, both sides worked hard to contain it below the threshold of a fully-fledged crisis,” she said.
Opposing positions on Yemen, oil production
For example, in 2018, when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was globally scrutinized after the murder of the Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the prince expected the full support of the United Arab Emirates, Bianco recalls.
“But the Emiratis hesitated to support MBS in that situation because they were afraid that the reputational blowback would have hit them, too,” she said.
Another example for opposing Saudi and Emirati positions preventing a smooth cooperation was the political situation in Yemen. In 2015, a year after the Iran-backed Houthis seized then-capital Sanaa and ousted the government, Saudi Arabia intervened with a coalition of nine countries, including the United Arab Emirates, in an effort to restore Yemen’s former government.
“However, the Emiratis were not blindly following the Saudis, but rather pursuing their own agenda, Bianco said. “Even if that meant that some of their actions would undermine the Saudi agenda.”
Above all, the UAE started supporting Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council, which seeks a secession from the Houthi-controlled north and center of the country.
Saudi Arabia, however, prefers to see Yemen united and has signalled that they are not fully opposed to the Houthis governing Yemen anymore.
Another example came in 2021, when the UAE — who was keen on expanding its own oil production — opposed Saudi Arabia’s push for a curb in oil supply within OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to which both Saudi Arabia and the UAE belong.
“The disagreement was brief, managed through dialogue, and ultimately resolved within the framework of continued joint market management,” Kristian Alexander recalls.
Since then, both countries have repeatedly cooperated on significant production cuts to stabilize global oil markets, underscoring that cooperation still outweighs rivalry in energy policy, Alexander added.
National strategies as key driver
Furthermore, both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi introduced strategic agendas to position their countries for the future and diversify their income away from oil by investing into technology and becoming AI hubs. Saudi Arabia announced its economic and societal overhaul agenda “Vision 2030” in April 2016, whereas the Emiratis introduced “UAE 2031” in November 2022.
“While the economic competition is quite severe, none of these tensions are going to push either country into confrontation, as both know that the region is too unstable for that to happen and they need to see things from the same point of view,” Michael Stephens, senior Middle East Security advisor at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, told DW.
ECFR’s Bianco agrees.
“From a geopolitical point of view, it makes zero sense for them to turn their differences into a crisis because they actually need to unite and confront other actors, such as Iran and increasingly also Israel,” she said.
While the UAE signed a US-brokered normalization deal with Israel in 2020, Saudi Arabia stalled such negotiations after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing two-year-war in Gaza.
“The UAE do not want to exit this [normalization] agreement, they would prefer things just go back and quietly return to some sort of normality,” Stephens said.
Despite US pressure to get Riyadh to normalize relations with Israel as well, Saudi Arabia is not looking for a return to the negotiating table unless there is a pathway for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, Stephens stated.
However, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, with Jerusalem as a shared capital.
It remains to be seen if the question over ties to Israel will have an impact on Saudi-Emirati relations.
Edited by: Carla Bleiker
