PARIS: Rebuilding trust between Abu Dhabi and Tehran will take “ages and ages”, UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said on Friday, after Iran targeted the United Arab Emirates during the Middle East conflict.

“You can’t be attacked with 2,800 missiles and drones and then talk to me about trust. That will take ages and ages,” Gargash said at a World Policy Conference in the town of Chantilly, north of Paris.

The top official said that 89 per cent of the Iranian attacks targeted “civilians, civilian infrastructure, energy infrastructure”.

“Tehran was telling the Arab Gulf countries that ‘you don’t matter in my calculations,’ and I think this is going to last for a very long time,” he said.

“To the region — to the United Arab Emirates and other countries, Iran will be seen as a strategic threat,” Gargash said.

Israeli-US strikes on Iran in late February sparked regionwide conflict, with Tehran targeting US allies and bases in the Gulf. A ceasefire was agreed at the start of the month, but peace talks in Pakistan have stalled in recent days.

Since the truce, the United States and Iran have shifted their focus to the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas exports ordinarily flow.

Iran has all but closed it in retaliation for the war, while the US has imposed a blockade of its own on Iranian ports.

Gargash said earlier this month that he thought Israeli influence in the Gulf would increase as a result of Iran’s strategy in the region.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2026