UAE president reemerges in video with US senator after rumours about health

United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has appeared in a meeting with US Senator Lindsey Graham for the first time after rumours about his health spread following a now-deleted Turkish presidency statement.

Earlier this month, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went to Saudi Arabia and was meant to later visit the neighbouring United Arab Emirates, amid an ongoing rift between the two Gulf powers.

But on Sunday, Erdogan said he was postponing his Abu Dhabi trip because the Emirati leader had a “health problem” — in a statement that was later deleted.

The incident fuelled rumours online about Sheikh Mohamed’s health, with his Wikipedia page even briefly being edited to say he had died.

On Wednesday, the presidential court shared video footage of the Emirati president, smiling alongside powerful US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham during a meeting at Qasr Al Shati in Abu Dhabi.

The UAE’s official WAM news agency also shared photographs of the meeting, in which Sheikh Mohamed appeared alongside Graham.

The Emirati leader’s team on Saturday evening released photos taken the same day showing Sheikh Mohamed, known as MBZ, smiling and apparently in good health, with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar.

Graham, writing on X, said he met the UAE president for an hour-and-a-half and dismissed those perpetuating false narratives against the UAE and President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed as “full of it”.