Meryem Göktaş,Ekip
22 January 2018•Update: 23 January 2018
By Ahmed Suliman
DOHA
The top museum in Abu Dhabi on Monday replaced a map of the Gulf which omitted the name Qatar, calling the inaccuracy an “oversight.”
"The map showed the commercial path taken by an ancient vase. The inaccuracy was an oversight, and so we have replaced the map on display," the UAE’s Louvre said in a press release.
In an analysis posted last week entitled “The UAE/Qatar rivalry is escalating”, the Washington Institute’s Simon Henderson pointed out the large map's omission of Qatar.
“In the children's section of Abu Dhabi's new flagship Louvre Museum, a map of the southern Gulf completely omits the Qatari peninsula -- a geographical deletion that is probably incompatible with France's agreement to let Abu Dhabi use the Louvre's name,” he wrote.
Last year, the UAE paid Paris' famous Louvre Museum over half a billion dollars to use its name in its own branch of the Louvre.
The “geographical omission” noted by Henderson comes amid mounting tension between the two oil-rich Gulf states.
For the last seven months, the two countries have been on opposite sides of an unprecedented crisis in inter-Arab relations.
Last summer, the UAE -- along with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain -- abruptly severed ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorist groups in the region.
Qatar, for its part, vehemently denies the allegations, describing attempts to isolate it by its fellow Arab states as a violation of international law.
