Editor’s Note: Leonardo Jacopo Maria Mazzucco is a specialist on maritime operations in the Persian Gulf and nearby waters. He has previously written for Stimson about the Saudi navy, arms, and drug trafficking in the Middle East, and the threat to international shipping posed by Yemen’s Houthis.
By Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Perspectives
United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian last fall on the margins of a BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. The encounter was the first official meeting between Abu Dhabi’s emir and an Iranian president and the culmination of a long diplomatic rapprochement between two historic Persian Gulf rivals amid a broader regional detente.
After years of incendiary rhetoric, diplomatic hostility, and shadow military confrontation, relations with Iran among key members of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain – took a turn for the better in 2023 and 2024. But new challenges await as the region continues to experience turmoil, including ripples from the Gaza war, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, Iran-Israel hostility and the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
From Abu Dhabi’s point of view, safeguarding national security and ensuring economic prosperity underpin the diplomatic push towards Tehran. UAE-Iran détente talks gained significant traction in the aftermath of a series of unclarified incidents damaging commercial vessels off the UAE’s coasts in 2019, which followed the Trump administration’s withdrawal in 2018 from the Iran nuclear deal and reimposition of tough sanctions.
As with the UAE’s rapprochement with Turkey and Qatar, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s National Security Adviser and brother of MBZ, spearheaded the outreach to Iran. A flurry of bilateral engagements have occurred at middle and senior levels over the past three years. In July 2024, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan led an Emirati diplomatic delegation on a two-day state visit to Tehran, meeting with President Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and the speaker of Iran’s Parliament Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. Most recently on February 12, the UAE foreign minister met Kamal Kharazi, a senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, former Iranian foreign minister and the president of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, on the sidelines of a multinational meeting in Dubai.
Since early 2023, Abu Dhabi and Tehran have also advanced talks on civil aviation and maritime shipping, trade and investments, joint climate action on sand storms, and border management affairs.
In patching up relations with Iran, the UAE aims to position itself as an interlocutor with the Islamic Republic and to reshape the mechanisms regulating the region’s geopolitical architecture to support de-escalation, de-confliction and economic diversification.
Despite the improvement in ties with Tehran, however, Iran and the UAE have not resolved a five-decade-long territorial dispute over three small islands in the Persian Gulf — Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs.
In late November 1971, Iran – at the time still ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – seized control of the islands two days before the UAE’s foundation. Since then, Iran has heavily militarized the islands, while the UAE has championed a diplomatic solution. The crisis has profoundly shaped the UAE’s institutional memory and threat perception, strengthening the image of Iran as a hegemonic power.
From a military strategic perspective, controlling the three islands provides a major advantage. Situated at the heart of the Persian Gulf’s shipping lanes, bases on the islands monitor maritime traffic in and out of the Strait of Hormuz and are pivotal in Iran’s naval defense architecture.
The UAE’s strategy to reclaim the outposts has primarily focused on rallying support for its sovereignty claims at regional and international fora and seeking the diplomatic backing of geopolitical heavyweights. In the past two years, the UAE has repeatedly secured Chinese and Russian rhetorical support for its claims, which have caused public spats between Tehran and its closest strategic partners.
However, it remains to be seen to what extent the UAE can translate Chinese and Russian symbolic backing into tangible pressure for a change in the status quo.
Meanwhile, the Emiratis continue to fear being dragged into a conflict between Iran and Israel as a result of the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the consequent Israeli war on Gaza. Regional conflict expanded in 2024, leading to an Israeli offensive in Lebanon that decapitated the command and political structures of Hezbollah and Hamas while emboldening the Houthis.
To avoid getting caught in the crossfire of intensifying Iranian-Israeli tit-for-tat exchanges and to distance itself from Washington’s assertive military posture vis-à-vis Tehran, the UAE has restricted the U.S. from using its airspace and military facilities to conduct strikes against Iran and its proxy forces. The Emiratis have also criticized Israeli attacks against the Islamic Republic, condemning the targeting of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Damascus, Syria, in April 2024 and denouncing the Israeli missile strikes on Iran in October 2024.
At the same time, the UAE remains watchful of Iran and its region-wide network of militant groups, commonly known as the “Axis of Resistance.” Although this alliance has been substantially weakened by the war in Lebanon and the abrupt collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, the Emiratis are mindful of January 2022 Houthi missile and drone strikes against Abu Dhabi and the possibility that the Houthis might resume their anti-shipping campaign in the Red Sea remains a major source of concern.
Trump’s return to the White House brings further uncertainty. The UAE has complicated memories of the first Trump presidential term. From the U.S. crushing economic sanctions on Iran to the killing in 2020 of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qasem Soleimani, Trump’s Middle East policy risked derailing Abu Dhabi’s diplomatic overtures to Tehran. However, the 2020 Abraham Accords — the agreements normalizing relations between Israel and four Arab countries, including the UAE — were a groundbreaking diplomatic milestone for the Emirates.
It remains unclear what direction Trump will take toward the region in his second term. Although Trump recently signed a memorandum resuming the so-called “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, he said he did so with regret and would prefer a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear advances.
A tougher U.S. stance on Iran is likely to cause severe setbacks for Emirati-Iranian ties. Abu Dhabi will probably pursue a wait-and-see approach to better measure Trump’s foreign policy trajectory while coordinating with Tehran on contingency plans should the Trump administration ramp up enforcement of anti-Iran sanctions. While the UAE and Iran may never be close allies, Abu Dhabi’s recent actions suggest that it will strive to keep relations with Iran on a positive track.
A bilateral meeting between the Emirati and Iranian foreign ministers on December 29, 2024, the first in-person talk since the Assad regime’s fall in Syria, reflected the will of the two countries to keep direct communication channels open at a time of groundbreaking shifts in the regional political order. Meanwhile, on February 3, an Iranian flotilla of four surface combatants conducted a friendly visit to Sharjah’s port, the first of its kind since the UAE and Iran resumed maritime security talks in mid-2019. This large-scale Iranian port call speaks volumes about the Emirati and Iranian resolve to back détente with concrete military coordination and signals to the Trump administration that the UAE has scant appetite for a new attempt to isolate Iran from its Gulf neighbors.
Leonardo Jacopo Maria Mazzucco is an independent research analyst who focuses on the security and defense affairs of the Persian Gulf region. He is also an analyst at Gulf State Analytics, a Washington-based geopolitical risk consultancy. Leonardo tweets at @mazz_L