US VP Kamala Harris to lead US delegation to UAE this week

This week, US Vice President Kamala Harris will be traveling to the United Arab Emirates. Harris will be leading a US delegation to personally pay respects to the nation’s late president.

Harris and the US delegation will be traveling to the United Arab Emirates on Monday to personally express their condolences following the death of the UAE president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Harris will also be meeting with the new UAE president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

“In addition to honoring the memory and the legacy of Sheikh Khalifa, the Vice President will underscore the strength of the partnership between our countries and our desire to further deepen our ties in the coming months and years,” said Harris’s press secretary Kirsten Allen in a statement informing of the vice president’s upcoming visit.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Secretary of State Antony Blinken would be part of the delegation that will visit the UAE. Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry, CIA Director William Burns, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will also be joining Harris on the trip.

The US Embassy Abu Dhabi Charge d’Affairs Sean Murphy, Harris’s national security adviser Phil Gordon, National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk, and NSC senior director for the Middle East and North Africa Barbara Leaf will also join Harris.

The officials that are part of the delegation that Harris will lead are also an effort to ease tensions between the two countries. Tensions flared up when a drone attack on Abu Dhabi by the Houthis back in January killed three people. The UAE has since called on the Biden administration to redesignate the Houthi rebels as foreign terrorists after President Joe Biden reversed the designation made under the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, Harris condemned the recent mass shooting at Buffalo, New York, when an 18-year-old white gunman shot 10 people at a grocery store in a Black neighborhood in the state.

“Law enforcement is proceeding with its investigation, but what is clear is that we are seeing an epidemic of hate across our country that has been evidenced by acts of violence and intolerance,” said Harris in a statement Sunday. “Racially-motivated hate crimes or acts of violent extremism are harms against all of us.”