UAE REACTION TO AQABA AND SHARM

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABU DHABI 002744 SIPDIS STATE FOR NEA/ARP, NEA/ARN AND NEA/IPA NSC FOR THEROUX E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/09/08 TAGS: PREL PTER KPAL KWBG TC SUBJECT: UAE REACTION TO AQABA AND SHARM SUMMITS A MIXTURE OF HOPE AND SKEPTICISM REF: ABU DHABI 2611 ¶1. (U) Classified by Ambassador Marcelle M. Wahba for reasons 1.5 (B) and (D). ¶2. (C) SUMMARY: UAE reaction to last week's summits in Sharm El-Sheikh and Aqaba has been a mixture of appreciation for the President's personal engagement, skepticism about Sharon's ultimate commitment to a peaceful solution and fear for Abu Mazen's political future and physical safety. The press has criticized Hamas' decision to continue the armed struggle and expressed fears over the outbreak of a Palestinian civil war. END SUMMARY. ¶3. (C) MFA Minstate Hamdan bin Zayid telephoned the Ambassador over the local weekend with his own assessment of the Aqaba summit. While he felt that the statements issued by the four leaders were encouraging, Hamdan remains worried about actual implementation of the roadmap and the many Israeli reservations. Hamdan reported that the Emirati leadership believes Abu Mazen said all the right things but fears that he will be further weakened in Palestinian circles if he does not get some kind of substantive response from the Israelis. (Comment: The 6/8 joint attacks on Israeli soldiers have no doubt further fed fears of Abu Mazen's marginalization and inability to stem future attacks. End Comment.) ¶4. (C) Former UAE Oil Minister Mana'a Saeed Al-Otaiba, in a June 7 meeting with the Ambassador (other topics covered septel),expressed his trepidation about Abu Mazen's safety. Al-Otaiba, noting that Abu Mazen was a close personal friend and that Abu Mazen's elder brother had been his primary school teacher in Qatar in the late 1950s/early 1960s, recalled a recent private meeting with Abu Mazen in Morocco. In Al-Otaiba's view, Abu Mazen was faced with a very daunting task, governing a people who were difficult to manage in the best of times, with limited resources and absent the basic tools with which to maintain security. Al-Otaiba was not surprised by Abu Mazen's decision not to take back Palestinian territory until he could adequately control the security situation. Shaykh Hamdan had raised this point in an earlier conversation with the Ambassador (reftel). ¶5. (U) The UAE press also took a pragmatic approach toward the Aqaba and Sharm summits. The English daily Gulf Today opined that "the spate of pledges by the participants of the Aqaba summit should have raised waves of hope all around the Red Sea had it been made under more realistic circumstances. But neither Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas nor Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would swear on what they pledged in the presence of U.S. President George W. Bush, now in the role of a peacemaker." The paper's editorial went on to note that "it would be naive to believe that Sharon would get the approval from his extreme right wing colleagues for dismantling settlements." The English daily Gulf News feared that "the sudden announcement by Hamas to break off talks with the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) could give rise to a Palestinian civil war that will undermine the roadmap and detract Palestinians from their goal of regaining their national rights." WAHBA