Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan expressed his condemnation of recent terrorist attacks in France, during a phone call with President Emanuel Macron, Emirati news agency WAM reported on Sunday.
The prince stressed his rejection of hate speech, and any justification for crime, violence and terrorism, WAM said.
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Prince Mohammed, the first Persian Gulf leader to normalize relations with Israel, has long been seen as a savvy politician who has driven the United Arab Emirate's rise to diplomatic prominence.
With his brother Sheikh Khalifa the nation's president, he serves as deputy commander of the armed forces and chairman of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi, which controls the emirate's substantial finances.
Meanwhile, in France, police made two additional arrests Sunday as the investigation continues into the church attack in the southern city of Nice that left three people dead, including one almost beheaded.
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France has endured a spate of brutal, seemingly lone-wolf attacks in the last few weeks, for which the catalyst was Charlie Hebdo's republication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad - the original ones having sparked off a massacre of 12 people at the publication's Paris offices in 2015.
There was a subsequent attack outside its offices after the republication, school teacher Samuel Paty was stabbed and then beheaded and then the attack in Nice. In addition, a Greek Orthodox priest was seriously wounded after an attacker with a sawn-off shotgun, blasted at him as he closed up his church in Lyon on Saturday.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
