Amid a crisis between Turkey and the United Arab Emirates over comments tweeted by the UAE foreign minister regarding the behavior of Ottoman governor and commander Fahreddin Pasha, Turkey has decided to rename the street on which the UAE Embassy is located after the Ottoman commander.
According to a report by the state-run Anadolu news agency, Ankara Mayor Mustafa Tuna has ordered a change in name of the street in Çankaya where the UAE Embassy is situated, and the Ankara City Council will rename the street Fahreddin Pasha at its next scheduled meeting.
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan had recently tweeted: “Do you know that in 1916 Turkish Fakhri Pasha committed a crime against the people of the Prophet’s City, stole their money and kidnapped them and their passengers on trains to Damascus […]. The Turks also stole most of the manuscripts of the Mahmudiyah library in the city and sent them to Turkey. These are Erdogan’s ancestors and their history with Arab Muslims.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Dec. 20 lambasted Al Nayan: “Those miserable people are in such a delirious state that they can say without shame that Erdoğan’s ancestors stole sacred relics from Medina and brought them to Istanbul! That is called protecting a place from intruders, not stealing. Protecting in the name of martyrdom.”
“You pitiful person who slanders us: Where were your ancestors while Fahreddin Pasha was defending Medina?” he added.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Dec. 21 summoned the chargé d’affaires of the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Ankara over comments tweeted by the UAE foreign minister.
