Middle Eastern foes are giving diplomacy a shot

IT WAS A surprising choice for a summer holiday. On August 18th Tahnoon bin Zayed, the national-security adviser of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), turned up in Ankara to meet Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey. The countries have been at odds for years over Mr Erdogan’s support for Islamist groups around the Middle East. Turkish officials accused the UAE of abetting a failed coup in 2016. But none of that was mentioned in the official statement after their meeting, which talked instead of economic co-operation.

A week later Sheikh Tahnoon met the emir of Qatar, becoming the most senior Emirati official to visit Qatar since the UAE and three other Arab states imposed an embargo on it in 2017. Again, there was cheery language about co-operation. The sheikh is one of the UAE’s most influential figures, a brother of Muhammad bin Zayed, the de facto ruler. His visits were a sign of a shift in Emirati foreign policy. It is not the only country changing course.

There are two main faultlines in today’s Middle East. One pits the Gulf states and Israel against Iran and its allies. The other runs between countries such as Turkey and Qatar, which are sympathetic to Islamists, and Egypt and the UAE, which are not. These schisms have fuelled conflict in the Levant, Libya and Yemen, and less bloody disputes elsewhere....