They also came to praise his heir, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who has been elected as the country’s new president. The first Western leader to reach the capital of Abu Dhabi was the President of France, Emmanuel Macron. He met Sheikh Mohammed on Sunday to pay his respects to Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the nation’s long-ailing ruler, who died on 13 May, Friday, at the age of 73. Sheikh Mohammed has served his duty as the country’s de facto leader and as the crown prince of Abu Dhabi since Sheikh Khalifa had a stroke in 2014. In recent years, Paris and Abu Dhabi have become highly aligned, sharing a profound mistrust of Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood around the wider region, including Turkey and Libya.

Source: Libya Today May 15, 2022 15:51 UTC