UAE Prime Minister Mohamed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum said he hopes Minister of Defense General Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi maintains his role as head of the army and refrain from running for president.

Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ruler of Dubai Mohamed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum said he hopes Minister of Defense General Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi maintains his role as head of the army and refrain from running for president.

Al-Maktoum’s comments came during a Monday interview with BBC, where he expressed his preference that Al-Sisi stay on as head of the army rather than becoming the country’s head of state.

However, an official source in the UAE Prime Minister’s Office later on Monday stressed “the respect of the United Arab Emirates for the will of the Egyptian people and its support for their political choices” in a statement published on the Emirati official News Agency (WAM).

“The brotherly advice offered by [Al-Maktoum] is that [Al-Sisi] should not run for election as President of Egypt while a military man. His candidacy, as a civilian, in compliance with the demands of the people, is a personal matter for Al-Sisi,” the official source said, adding that UAE will always support the choices of the Egyptian people.

The prime minister’s comments came two days after Al-Sisi’s statement, during a Saturday symposium organized by the armed forces moral affairs department, announcing that he would run for president if “the people demand it and the army delegates [him].”

State-owned news agency MENA reported that the armed forces leaders announced during the symposium that they would “succumb to the demands of the people” if they wanted Al-Sisi to run for president.