The first UK-UAE Strategic Dialogue took place on Monday in London, where UAE’s foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed met with UK’s foreign secretary James Cleverly, according to the Emirates News Agency.

The meeting highlighted the strong and diverse cooperation between the two countries, their shared history, and their ongoing commitment to enhancing ties and relations.

The two officials agreed on the need to work together to tackle global challenges, and emphasized the importance of a comprehensive and ambitious agenda for the UN Climate Change Conference, which will be hosted by Dubai later this year.

The dialogue praised the UK and UAE’s trade and investment relations, as well as their aviation cooperation. It celebrated the record high of £21.6 billion ($26.9 billion) in trade in goods and services between the two countries in the four quarters ending in Q4 2022.

The dialogue also welcomed the success of the Sovereign Investment Partnership, which was signed in 2021 and reaffirmed the commitment to expanding and developing trade and investment links between the two countries in areas of mutual benefit.

The two sides also applauded their countries’ existing partnerships in energy and clean energy sectors.

The officials stressed the importance of coordination at the UN Security Council and commended the UAE’s leadership on the recent UNSC resolutions on Afghanistan.

They discussed extensively on common priorities at the UNSC, such as promoting the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, fostering tolerance and counter-extremism, addressing the effects of climate change on international peace and security, as well as preventing and resolving conflicts peacefully, building and sustaining peace, and fighting intolerance, hate speech. The officials also talked about regional security and stability and stressed the importance of dialogue and building bridges to achieve peace, covering the situations in Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Sheikh Abdullah and Cleverly agreed on the need to work together to back diplomatic efforts and channels aimed at resolving the conflict in Ukraine in line with UN Charter principles.