His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UAE, received the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, the Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP, on\u00a018 April 2026 for\u00a0her first official visit to the UAE.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two Ministers discussed the deep and historic UK-UAE relationship, founded on a shared commitment to regional stability,\u00a0prosperity\u00a0and international cooperation. They built on discussions between the UK Prime Minister\u00a0the Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP\u00a0and the President of the UAE, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on 9 April.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two Ministers formally agreed to a Framework for enhanced cooperation between their two countries, covering foreign affairs, defence, trade and investment, artificial intelligence, the energy transition, and judicial cooperation and illicit finance. The Framework provides an ambitious basis to deliver a long-term bilateral partnership and strengthened mutual resilience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Secretary of State thanked the UAE authorities for their\u00a0extensive efforts to safeguard British Nationals amid\u00a0recent\u00a0regional hostilities. HH\u00a0Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE\u00a0Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs expressed appreciation for the continued support from the UK in response to Iranian aggression. Both Ministers agreed on the importance of ongoing consular cooperation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Ministers\u00a0condemned in the strongest terms Iran\u2019s egregious\u00a0and\u00a0unjustifiable attacks,\u00a0on the UAE\u00a0and States across the region,\u00a0including against civilians and civilian\u00a0infrastructure,\u00a0in\u00a0clear breach of their sovereignty and territorial integrity and in flagrant violation of fundamental principles and rules of international law, including the UN Charter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recalling UN Security Council resolution 2817 (2026), the two sides condemned Iran\u2019s actions and threats aimed at closing, obstructing, or otherwise interfering with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. The Ministers affirmed the importance of freedom of navigation without tolling in the strait, in accordance with international law, reflected in UNCLOS.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two Ministers further recalled the 19 March 2026 decision of the International Maritime Organization Council condemning Iran\u2019s threats and attacks against vessels and its closure of the Strait of Hormuz as\u00a0representing\u00a0a grave danger to life and serious risk to the safety of navigation and the marine environment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Ministers welcomed the initiative by the UK and France, announced on 17 April, to support freedom of navigation, to stand up for international law, and to protect global economic stability and energy security with the support of an international coalition.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two Ministers condemned attacks in Sudan against civilians, as well as humanitarian personnel and convoys, by the warring parties. They\u00a0stressed\u00a0that the\u00a0warring parties have a\u00a0responsibility\u00a0to bring\u00a0the\u00a0conflict\u00a0to an end\u00a0and\u00a0the international community to increase pressure to bring this about,\u00a0and that the protection of civilians must remain central. They emphasised the urgent need for an immediate and unconditional truce to enable rapid, safe, and unimpeded\u00a0humanitarian\u00a0access across Sudan and rejected any attempts to politicise humanitarian\u00a0assistance. The Ministers underscored that Sudan\u2019s future must be\u00a0determined\u00a0by its civilians through an independent civilian-led process to meet the aspirations of the Sudanese people towards a transition to a civilian-led government. They welcomed recent engagements between the Quad, the United\u00a0Kingdom\u00a0and the European Union, most recently on the margins of the Berlin Conference, and reaffirmed the importance of continued coordination to advance peace in Sudan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Ministers also reaffirmed their commitment to supporting a comprehensive,\u00a0just\u00a0and lasting peace in Ukraine in line with international law and the principles of the\u00a0UN Charter, including respect for sovereignty,\u00a0independence\u00a0and territorial integrity. They welcomed the most recent UAE facilitation of prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and the Russian Federation,\u00a0bringing the total number of prisoners exchanged to 6,305 since the beginning of the war. They also discussed ways of cooperating on supporting Ukraine\u2019s recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Ministers looked forward to\u00a0continued\u00a0close cooperation and to growing the UK-UAE relationship over the period ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-917548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116465271395625799","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}