With the new, chaotic developments in Afghanistan and a new administration gaining parliamentary endorsement in Iran, the Gulf took quick measures to achieve reconciliation. Only days before a regional summit in Baghdad, the UAE's National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al Nahyan paid a surprising visit to Ankara where he met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. So far, the Emiratis had not warmed to the rapid rehabilitation of those known for supporting militant groups, from the Muslim Brotherhood to IS. Even though Abu Dhabi was part of a deal struck on 5 January this year to end the Qatar crisis and its ramifications, including tension with Turkey, the UAE was not as keen as Saudi Arabia and Egypt to fully reconcile. A few days later, Sheikh Tahnoun was in Doha meeting the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani. That was the culmination of the Emirati shift of policy towards reconciliation, even though the core reasons for the initial dispute had not been resolved. There were still significant struggles, where militant groups supported by Doha and Ankara posed threats to the Emiratis whose ultimate goal was to fend off terrorism. From Syria to Libya and even in Yemen, militants are still active and "threaten Gulf security and stability", as one Emirati source said. The man who was central to the 2017 standoff, Anwar Gergash – then minister of State for Foreign Affairs and now adviser to Emirati president on Foreign Affairs – was on Twitter again. Earlier he had tweeted that his country did not seek problems with Turkey and that they had the will to normalise relations. Now he tweeted, "the visit of Sheikh Tahnoun Bin Zayed to Qatar and his meeting with its Emir stem from the fact that we have a common destiny and our success is shared … Building bridges of cooperation and prosperity with brothers and friends is… a major pillar of the UAE's policy… We turn the page on disagreement and look to the future positively." Some analysts feel that the main catalyst of the recent, rapid reconciliation moves are regional developments. The dramatic American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban's takeover of the country showed that Qatar was a focal point in preparation for that transition in Afghanistan, acting as the main contact point between the Americans and the Taliban. The Americans are negotiating with the Iranians in Vienna to region JCOPA (the nuclear deal of 2015). All parties, regional and international, involved in the region are engaged in dialogue – public and private – pursuing new approaches to regional relations. A Western commentator who previously worked for years in Dubai agrees that this is mainly a UAE policy shift not influenced by any mediators – regional or otherwise. He attributes it to the fact that proactive Emirati foreign policy would not abate. "The UAE doesn't want to be sidelined in the defining developments now reshaping the region. In particular, when it comes to political Islam regaining some ground you can't just stand by and observe. You need to engage if you're devoted to the goal of fighting terrorism. Abu Dhabi is really devoted to that cause, and considers all terrorist groups offshoots of the main political Islam movement – the Muslim Brotherhood," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. He said that there is a new "non-formal axis" benefiting from the latest developments in Afghanistan. This is "temporarily taking the shine" from the traditional Saudi-UAE alliance: "The reconciliation effort that started in January at the GCC Summit in the Saudi Al-Ula was a sort of acknowledgement that Qatar survived the boycott, and the new administration in Washington finds Doha a 'partner to reckon with'. It was Saudi Arabia and Egypt that started opening up to Qatar, while the UAE and Bahrain were reluctant to follow. Now the UAE is changing its course and Bahrain will soon follow suit." It is worth noting that Bahraini-Qatari relations have always been sour for reasons other than those leading to the quartet boycott of Qatar in 2017. There are historical border disputes, and the conflict over two islands was internationalised before. During the Qatar crisis, the significance of Qatari aviation space was highlighted. Now, Doha is working on having its own airspace demarcated, separate from Bahrain's; it had previously been a shared airspace. Bahrain is also the GCC country that is more vulnerable to Iranian meddling in its internal affairs than the rest of the Gulf. Yet Bahrain would not stray from the general Gulf trajectory that is now heading for rapid reconciliation. The veteran Indian diplomat Navdeep Suri, a Distinguished Fellow and director of the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED) who served as ambassador to UAE, Egypt, Australia and other capitals, wrote a blog post this week about that change in the region: "So that's that? Or is it the tip of the iceberg? The Biden administration's determination to pull out of Afghanistan by August 31 is, perhaps, the elephant in the room. Having provided a base to several Taliban leaders and hosted the talks between the US and Mullah Baradar and his compatriots, the Qataris feel they have a strong hand. Turkey, which also has close ties with Pakistan, believes that it can wield a degree of influence in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan even though its offer to take charge of security at Kabul Airport was unceremoniously turned down. But the Turkey-Qatar axis, working in tandem with Pakistan, could turn out to be an important point of connection with the new Taliban regime". Of course, it is not only Taliban that is causing a paradigm shift in policy for some in the Gulf. It is actually a number of coalescing factors, as one Gulf pundit described it. Some in the region believe that, regardless of political rhetoric, the basic principles of policy remain the same. This means that the UAE will never back out of fighting terrorism and supporting those who stand against it. *A version of this article appears in print in the 2 September, 2021 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
