Emirati academic's barbed tweet on Pakistan exposes UAE unease over Mecca pact

Emirati academic's barbed tweet on Pakistan exposes UAE unease over Mecca pact Submitted by MEE staff on Sun, 08/16/2026 - 06:02 Disparaging remarks by Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a former aide to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, on Pakistan's ‘poverty, illiteracy’ and nuclear arsenal spark online backlash. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shakes hands with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman looks on after signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on 7 August 2026 (Handout/Turkish presidency's press office/AFP) Off Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent Emirati political analyst and former aide to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, has mocked Pakistan for its “poor” economic and social indicators and yet “opportunistically posturing itself to defend a country among the 20 largest economies in the world”. On 15 August, Abdulla wrote on X: “It is one of the paradoxes of time that a country where a quarter of its population is poor, a third of its population is illiterate, its national income is $400 billion, and it has suffered from corrupt military rule since its founding, chronic internal unrest, and wars with its closest neighbors—yet all its qualifications are 170 nuclear bombs—opportunistically postures itself to defend a country among the 20 largest economies in the world.