The tension between Saudi Arabia and the UAE over oil and the war in Yemen/Abu Dhabi is considering leaving OPEC
According to the report of Fars International News Agency, a few months ago when Abu Dhabi was hosting the leaders of the Middle East countries, the absence of one person was quite noticeable: Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. A month before the Abu Dhabi meeting held in January, senior UAE officials refused to attend the China-Arab world meeting in Riyadh.
Officials of the Persian Gulf countries have told the Wall Street Journal that the absence of “Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan”, the President of the UAE, and Mohammed bin Salman in events hosted by each other is a deliberate act and shows the widening gaps between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
According to this newspaper, although the UAE and Saudi Arabia are still considered allies, they have differences of opinion in several areas, which are rooted in the competition of the two countries to attract foreign investment and increase influence in the global oil markets, as well as differences over the course of the Yemeni war. has it.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s analysis, these differences, which were once limited only to behind-the-scenes circles, have gradually become more public and bring the risk of rearranging alliances in the Persian Gulf region, in the midst of Iran’s efforts to increase its influence in the region.
Informed sources say that “Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan”, the national security adviser of the UAE, who is considered to be one of the officials close to the president of this country, has traveled to Saudi Arabia many times to meet with Mohammed bin Salman, but he has not been successful in reducing tensions. At least once, after the January meeting in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Tahnoun was not allowed to meet with Bin Salman.
The biggest differences are over Yemen, where the Saudis and Emiratis have been leading a military coalition to counter Yemen’s Ansarullah since 2015. This war has led to the destruction of Yemen’s infrastructure and the spread of poverty, unemployment and infectious diseases in this poor Arab country. Since the beginning of these attacks, tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians have been martyred and injured.
In 2019, the UAE withdrew most of its ground forces from Yemen. Gulf officials have told the Wall Street Journal that while Saudi Arabia is holding direct talks with Ansarullah to end the war, the UAE is concerned that talks on Yemen’s future will be abandoned.
Officials cited by the Wall Street Journal say that the UAE wants to maintain its strategic position on the southern coast of Yemen and project power in the Red Sea in order to maintain the safety of sea routes from its ports to other parts of the world. In addition, the UAE wants to establish a military base and an airport runway on an island in the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.
In private circles, Saudi officials oppose these UAE plans. The Saudis believe that the Emirati plan is against Riyadh’s goals to secure their 800-mile border and prevent Ansarullah’s drone and missile attacks.
Persian Gulf officials say that the Saudis have deployed the Sudanese forces of the Arab coalition in the areas near the operations of the Emirates. The Emiratis consider this action by Saudi Arabia as a tactic to intimidate them.
In December, when Sheikh Mohammed refused to attend the meeting in Riyadh, Saudi officials interpreted it as a sign of the UAE’s displeasure with the intensification of the rivalry in Yemen. In that meeting, the ruler of Fujairah was present instead of Sheikh Mohammad.
As the two largest oil producers in the world, Saudi Arabia and the UAE also have differences over energy issues. Within OPEC, the UAE is obliged to produce oil at a much lower capacity than it is capable of. The UAE has been demanding to increase its production for a long time, but Saudi Arabia has opposed this issue.
Now, UAE officials have said that the country is conducting internal consultations to leave OPEC. This action can give this oil cartel a huge shock and weaken its power in the global oil markets.
At the OPEC Plus meeting held last October, the Emiratis got into a dispute with Saudi Arabia. In that meeting, OPEC Plus decided to significantly reduce the production of this product in order to increase the price of oil, which brought great dissatisfaction to the United States.
In the months before the OPEC+ meeting in October and following the escalation of tensions between the West and Moscow on the pretext of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, European countries and the United States sought to increase the production of oil and gas exporting countries in order to somehow cope with the decrease in Russian energy exports. Overcome your energy crisis. However, OPEC+’s final decision to cut oil production dealt a huge blow to these efforts.
In its October meeting, OPEC+ agreed to cut production by 2 million barrels per day in November. This reduction was the largest reduction in production since the Corona epidemic and at that time it was predicted that the price of oil, which in the previous three months due to the economic recession in the world, the increase in American interest rates and the strengthening of the dollar, may drop from $120 per barrel. It was reduced, strengthen.
The Biden administration has been trying to lobby Saudi Arabia to produce more oil for months, and in this regard, it made an unsuccessful trip to Saudi Arabia in July. OPEC+’s decision led to harsh rhetoric from US administration officials, who publicly said they would consider measures to punish Saudi Arabia.
The Wall Street Journal writes that the UAE publicly supported the OPEC+ move, but Saudi officials say the Emiratis told them in behind-the-scenes meetings that they wanted more oil production in line with Washington’s request. Saudi Arabia rejected this request. Since then, the UAE has begun efforts to get OPEC+ to agree to produce more oil.
An analyst of West Asian issues told the Wall Street Journal that the Emiratis are worried that Saudi Arabia is acting against their interests. On the other hand, the Saudis are also worried about the Emirates that endangers the dominance of Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf.
In 2019, when the UAE withdrew its forces from Yemen, Saudi Arabia felt alone. The UAE’s agreement to reveal relations with the Israeli regime was a move that made the differences between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi even more intense.
According to the Wall Street Journal, it seems that the differences between the two countries began in 2018 and after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a critical Saudi journalist, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Since then, the Emiratis have realized that they have to reconsider their relationship with Mohammed bin Salman.
According to this report, the dispute between Saudi Arabia and the UAE is not as serious as the dispute between Qatar and its neighbors. The Saudis and Emiratis continue to participate in joint exercises, but the honeymoon of full-scale alignments seems to be over.
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