The Eastern Mediterranean in UAE Foreign Policy: Goals and Principles

The Eastern Mediterranean in recent years has become an arena of growing activity of regional states causing tensions among them. The importance of this region from political and military point of view combined with its strategic value in the world energy markets underpins the growing involvement of the UAE, a non-regional actor that lately has become deeply engaged in the regional agenda. Due to the fact that the UAE has taken up a quite active foreign policy course outside of its traditional Gulf circle only recently - with the Eastern Mediterranean becoming a new area of Emirati activities - the volume and scope of Russian and foreign research on this topic is rather limited. The existing works that in some way cover issues of the UAE foreign policy do not reflect the increasing influence of this small Gulf state in the Middle East and North Africa and beyond. For this reason, there is a need for complex research on the matter. This paper is based on analysis of existing works on topics related to some aspects of Emirati foreign policy and tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as analytical articles and statistics. The dramatically increased interest of the UAE in the Eastern Mediterranean is part of significant transformations in the monarchy’s foreign policy that have been taking place since early 2010s. These transformations manifest themselves in new goals and purposes of Emirati foreign policy, its expanding scale and new instruments for its implementation. Not only is the UAE policy in the Eastern Mediterranean consistent with its general goal of containing Turkey and fighting the threat of Islamism, but it is also a part of realizing Emirati global ambitions of becoming a leader in energy and logistics and ensuring its international status as an influential actor.