The street where the embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Ankara is located will be renamed after Ottoman commander Fahreddin Pasha, the defender of Medina during World War I whose name triggered a rift between the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.
The cause of the conflict was a tweet from UAE’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, which accused Ottomans of committing crimes against the locals in Medina during World War I.
On Tuesday, Nahyan re-tweeted a post from an Iraqi man from Germany, according to his profile, on his official account, which said: “Did you know that in 1916, Turkish Fahreddin Pasha committed a crime against the people of Medina, stole their properties, and put them on a train en route to Damascus and Istanbul? Also the Turks stole the handwritten books in Mahmoudia Library and took them to Istanbul. This is the history of Erdoğan’s ancestors and what they did to Muslim Arabs.”
The post Nahyan re-tweeted accused Fahreddin Pasha, an Ottoman military governor of Medina who served from 1916 to 1919, of committing crimes against the local population, including stealing their property and the sacred relics of the Prophet Muhammad’s tomb.
The remarks received harsh criticism from top Turkish politicians, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said the Ottomans had done nothing but serve to protect the holy cities of Islam.
A few days after the Emirati minister’s provocation, Ankara Mayor Mustafa Tuna decided to rename the 613. Street, where the UAE embassy is located, as a reaction to the incident.
The name of the street and all signs are expected to be changed to “Fahreddin Paşa Sokağı” (Fahreddin Pasha Street) after the first municipal council meeting.
