Turkey: 'UAE uses famine as weapon to impose sovereignty'

Turkey’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Feridun Sinirlioglu announced on Wednesday that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is carrying out a campaign to dominate the region, accusing it of committing war crimes to achieve this.

In a letter sent to the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Sinirlioglu asserted: “UAE’s actions amounted to war crimes, causing mass civilian casualties and systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure through air strikes.”

The reason for these actions were attributed to Abu Dhabi’s “excessive ambition” to dominate the broader region, stressing that these actions “resulted in nothing but human suffering.”

According to Turkish news network TRT, Sinirlioglu informed that the Security Council must remind the UAE that it is bound by international law against “destructive and malicious policies” in the Middle East and North Africa.

Read: UAE inciting US to intervene in Libya

He cited the UAE’s actions in Yemen, noting that tens of thousands of Yemenis, including civilians, are believed to have been killed in a conflict, which was endured by the interference of the UAE and the Saudi-led coalition.

Such interference, according to Sinirlioglu, has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis as millions remain at risk of starvation.

On the situation in Libya, Sinirlioglu added: “The same military playbook used in Yemen was also applied here, by bombing civilians and civilian infrastructure and cooperating with extremist, radical groups.”

The UN, Sinirlioglu explained, also recorded systematic violations of an arms embargo by the UAE and deployment of mercenaries from Syria, Sudan, Chad and other nations to Libya.

Concluding his letter, he urged that the UAE: “Must respect the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of other states and it must stop instigating instability in the region and beyond.”

Turkey: UNSC must remind UAE of duty to international law