DUBAI (Dispatches) – The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Zionist regime have officially signed a comprehensive economic partnership deal as part of a widely-bashed normalization agreement between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv.
Thani al-Zeyoudi, the Emirati minister of state for foreign trade, made the announcement in a string of posts on his Twitter account on Sunday, saying the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which was initially inked in May, would remove or reduce tariffs on 96% of goods traded between the two sides.
He described the deal as “another major step in our foreign trade agenda,” noting the UAE-Israel Comprehensive Partnership Agreement which is ratified by both sides “will eliminate or reduce tariffs on 96% of products, providing a major boost to our industrial and service sectors.”
“Non-oil UAE-Israel trade hit U.S.$2bn in the first 9 months of 2022, up 114% from the same period in 2021. The UAE-Israel CEPA will accelerate this progress as we create opportunities in key sectors such as advanced technology, renewable energy and food security,” he added.
Back in 2020, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed United States-brokered agreements with Israel to normalize their ties with the regime. Some other regional states, namely Sudan and Morocco, followed suit soon afterward.
The normalization deals have sparked widespread condemnations from the Palestinians as well as nations and human rights advocates across the globe, especially within the Muslim world.
Last week, people in Bahrain staged fresh demonstrations across the Persian Gulf country to reiterate their support for the Palestinian cause and to condemn the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the Tel Aviv regime. The Bahraini demonstrators also protested a visit by Zionist president Isaac Herzog to Manama, as a result of which he was forced to change his itinerary.
Other regional countries have also been fraternizing with the occupying regime, including Saudi Arabia, which received a visit by the regime’s former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2020.
The much-criticized deals with the occupying regime come as the occupying regime has been pressing ahead with its decades-long acts of aggression against Palestinians in their occupied homeland.