CAIRO: Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahyan, ruler of the five-year-old United Arab Emirates, is not renewing his term when it expires on December 2 because he finds he lacks the prerogative to control illegal immigration into the sheikhdoms he rules. He told Cairo’s newspaper ‘Al-Ahram’ in an interview … that two other reasons compelled him not to accept a renomination appeal: the sale of UAE land to non-Arabs arriving into the country affording to pay high prices for it, and the fact that one single Emirate, Abu Dhabi, is bearing all the expenses of the Federation.

The Arab sheikh of the oil-rich Gulf state said that if Abu Dhabi has been able to afford paying since the creation of the union in 1971, “it cannot go on doing so for ever, especially because of its commitments to the Arab cause against Israel”. Both King Khaled of Saudi Arabia and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt have been calling on the Sheikh to reconsider his decision. Massive popular turnouts were converging on the Sheikh’s palace with the same request. … The seriousness of the UAE vulnerability to … illegal immigration was borne this week by reports that 1,400 foreigners tried to infiltrate by sea into … Fujeira. …

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2026