Abu Dhabi — US President Donald Trump؛s travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations is not anti-Islam, the United Arab Emirates foreign minister said on Wednesday.
Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, whose country is a close ally of Washington, said it was “wrong to say” that the decision by the new US administration was “directed against a particular religion”.
“The United States has made... a sovereign decision,” he said at a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, pointing out that it was “provisional” and did not apply to “the large majority” of the world؛s Muslims.
President Donald Trump؛s controversial executive order on Friday singled out citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to prevent “radical Islamic terrorists” from entering the United States.
But the 90-day ban, which could still extend to other states, has exempted Muslim-majority nations associated with major attacks in the West.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Trump should be more specific about his proposal to set up safe zones in Syria.
Lavrov said he hoped Russia could discuss the issue with the US State Department once it had drawn up more detailed plans for the safe zones.
He said he did not think, from what he knew so far, that Trump was proposing to roll out safe zones in the same way as it had been done in Libya in 2011. — Agencies
