Biden apologises for speaking (half of) the truth.
Humbled Biden apologizes to UAE after accusing it of terrorism funding
Humbled Biden apologizes to UAE after accusing it of terrorism funding
RT,
6
October 2014
US
Vice President Joe Biden has made the latest in a series of
chastening apologies, after the United Arab Emirates expressed
“astonishment” at his Thursday remarks. Biden called US allies
“the biggest problem” in fighting terrorism in the Middle East.
Biden
called Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince and Deputy Defense Minister Mohammed
bin Zayed on Sunday to reaffirm the allies’ shared perspective on
terrorism, the official Emirates news agency WAM reported.
Earlier
on the same day, the UAE’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Gargash
accused Biden of making remarks “which
are far from the truth, especially with relation to the UAE's role in
confronting extremism and terrorism and its clear and advanced
position in recognizing the dangers, including the danger of
financing terrorism and terrorist groups.”
“The
UAE’s counter-terrorism approach reflects a pioneering national
commitment that recognises the extent of the danger posed by
terrorism to the region and to its people,” said
Gargash in a press release.
The
assertions were in stark contrast to the incendiary remarks Biden
uttered in an unguarded moment during a Q&A at Harvard University
on Thursday, in which the official accused the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and
Turkey of inciting radical Sunni elements to raise their weapons
against Assad, who belongs to a sect of Shia Islam.
“What
did they [the three countries] do? They poured hundreds of millions
of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would
fight against Assad – except that the people who were being
supplied were Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaida and the extremist elements
of jihadis coming from other parts of the world,” said
Biden.
Biden
has since officially apologized to
Turkey, which was also quick to take offense, with President Tayyip
Erdogan saying Biden could nowbe “history
to me.”
Perhaps
most frustrating for the politician with a history of loose-lipped
statements is that Secretary of State John Kerry had made a virtually
identical statement less than a fortnight earlier, saying that
funding anti-Assad troops has been a “sloppy
process” that
led to the rise of ISIS. The statements had been voiced before, with
Gulf states accused of funding militant groups fighting the Syrian
government.
The
US, which withdrew its troops from Iraq in 2011 and had avoided
directly interfering in the Syrian conflict, has been dragged back
into an armed confrontation with the Islamic State (IS, ISIS / ISIL).
The radical Islamist organization has executed a series of successful
offensives and has gained control over large swathes of Iraq and
Syria since the summer.
A
US-led coalition has responded with airstrikes, but is now
contemplating a ground invasion to regain control of the region.
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