Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan visited the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin during a "historic" first meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Gabi Ashkenazi.
It was their first face-to-face meeting since their countries signed a US-brokered deal in mid-September to normalize ties.
Accompanied by their host German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, the pair walked through the somber monument, a vast undulating labyrinth of more than 2,700 grey concrete blocks spread over an area equivalent to three football fields.
It commemorates the slaughter of six million Jews by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.
Sheikh Abdullah and Ashkenazi shared a few words as they visited the monument's underground museum and signed the visitors' book.
Writing in the visitors’ book in Arabic, Sheikh Abdullah called the site “a witness to the fall of a group of human beings who were victims of advocates of extremism and hatred,” and he advocated “the noble human values of coexistence, tolerance, acceptance of others and respect of all religions and beliefs”.
“Never Again,” he added in English - a slogan often taken up by survivors of Nazi Germany’s World War Two genocide to justify actions to protect Israel and the Jewish people.
Ashkenazi looked forward in his message saying the meeting "symbolizes the beginning of a new era. An era of peace between peoples.”
Maas called it "a great honor that the Israeli and Emirati foreign ministers picked Berlin as the site for their historic first meeting.
"The most important currency in diplomacy is trust and I am personally thankful to both my colleagues that they are placing this trust in Germany."
Bahrain and the UAE became the first Arab nations to establish relations with Israel since Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
Maas called the Israel-UAE agreement the "first good news in the Middle East for a long time -- and a chance for new movement in the dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians".
"This opportunity must be seized," said Maas, whose country currently holds the presidency of the EU, voicing the readiness of the bloc to help.
