ANKARA: Ankara on Tuesday renamed the street in the Turkish capital where the United Arab Emirates’ embassy is located after an Ottoman governor, in a symbolic riposte to Abu Dhabi following weeks of tensions.

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan retweeted a post on Twitter last month which accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “ancestors of kidnapping people of Madina in the early 20th century.” The post by a user called “Ali al-Iraqi” also claimed that Fahreddin Pasha — the Ottoman governor of Madina from 1916 to 1919 — stole from the people of the sacred Islamic pilgrimage city.

Erdogan hit back at the Emirati minister, telling him to “know your place” and that the claims were “slanderous” to the memory of Turkey’s Ottoman predecessors.

He later said the minister was “ill-bred” and “too spoilt by oil and money”, in a reference to the UAE’s rapid growth in recent decades.

Ankara mayor Mustafa Tuna said that 613 Street would be renamed “Fahreddin Pasha” while the nearby avenue would be renamed “Madina Defender” instead of 609 Avenue.

The decision, mooted last month, was approved by the Ankara municipality assembly on Monday.

“Henceforth, the mailing address of the embassy will be Madina Defender Avenue, Fahreddin Pasha Street. Good luck with it,” Tuna said in a tweet.

Turkish television early Tuesday showed city workers switching the signs.

Relations between the UAE and Turkey have been marked by distrust in recent months.

Ankara supports Qatar in the seven-month standoff with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt which cut all ties with the Gulf emirate on June 5.

Those Gulf states claim that Qatar supports Islamist extremists and is too close to Iran, Riyadh’s arch-rival. Ankara rejects the charges.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2018