Israel could build military base in UAE, Iranian report claims

An Iranian report has warned against "undeclared aims" in the UAE-Israel normalisation agreement, which could include the establishment of an Israeli military base in the United Arab Emirates in order to help it gain a foothold in the Gulf and be closer to Iran.

Although not declared in the 13 August agreement, the report in Jadeh Iran said that this aim was "clear in the geopolitical sense."

The report also argued that the agreement is not, as it claims, for peace in Israel-Palestine, as relations between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv have been conducted in secret for years.

"Abu Dhabi fired neither a shot nor a threat" against Israel since its inception, the piece added.

The report claimed that the agreement's top priority is to attack Iran, and logically it could "lead to the establishment of Israeli military and security bases facing Iran."

This poses a serious risk to Iranian security as most of its important oil fields, ports and nuclear reactors have been built on the Gulf coast.

The piece claimed that Israel's interest in the normalisation agreement stemmed from the UAE's geographic proximity to Iran, "which puts an Israeli eye, and perhaps even a hand as well, a few kilometers away from strategic Iranian installations."

Read also: How the Israel-UAE alliance formalises new fault lines in the Middle East

For many years, Israel and the Gulf states have been cooperating in security and other matters, in part to counter Iranian aggression, seen as a threat to both the Gulf kingdoms and the Jewish state.

Several days after the normalisation agreement was announced, reports surfaced of a historic US arms sale to the UAE, including F-35 jets, including F-35 fighter jets, Reaper drones and EA-18G Growler jets - electronic warfare planes that can conduct stealth attacks by jamming enemy air defences.



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