Turkey Blocks Several Saudi and U.A.E. News Websites

(Bloomberg) -- Turkey blocked more than a dozen websites linked to Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in retaliation against a similar step by Saudi authorities, in a further sign of the strained ties between the Middle East’s largest economies.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency and Emirates News Agency, as well as the Abu-Dhabi-based Sky News Arabia and Saudi-backed Independent Turkish were among the blocked news outlets as of Sunday, according to information on the website of Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported last week that Saudi authorities had blocked access to its website and that of the Arabic outlet of the national public broadcaster TRT.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s backing of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood-inspired movements prompted Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Egypt to form an anti-Turkey bloc. The two sides are on opposite ends of the conflict in Libya and the Saudi-led embargo against Qatar. Ties deteriorated further with the murder of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

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