Vice President Biden Apologizes to UAE Over Syria Remarks

U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden apologized to the United Arab Emirates Sunday for the remarks he made last week that U.A.E. had supported Islamic militants in Syria.

Biden called the crown prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to render his apology, after U.A.E. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash demanded an official explanation from him for the remarks.

"In the phone call, Biden offered his apology to the U.A.E. for any implications in his recent statements that may have been understood to mean that the U.A.E. had supported the growth of some of the terrorist organizations in the region," state news agency WAM said, reports Reuters., 

The White House in a statement said that Biden clarified his remarks and accepted the strong measures U.A.E. was taking to deal with the militants. He also acknowledged the participation of U.A.E. in the U.S. led operations against the Islamic State.

In the statement, The White House said that Biden's comments on the initial stages of the conflict in Syria were not intended to imply that U.A.E. had supported the al Qaeda, the Islamic State or other extremists in Syria, reports the Associated Press.

Biden made the comments in a speech at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In his speech, Biden said that the biggest problem the U.S was facing was from its allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. who were conducting a proxy Sunni- Shiite war against the government of Bashar Assad.

"What did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad - except that the people who were being supplied were (Jabhat) al-Nusra and al-Qaida and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world," Biden said in his speech, reports AP.