The United Arab Emirates (UAE) summoned the Qatari ambassador Faris al-Nuaimi on Sunday, giving the representative an official letter of protest over comments made by Doha-based cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, local news agency WAM reported.

According to the report, the UAE protested against comments made by the Egyptian-born cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi during a sermon last Friday in Doha when he said the UAE "would not support an Islamist government," hinting at the UAE's support of a military removal of Egypt's former Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi.

Al-Qaradawi is the head of the Brotherhood-affiliated International Federation of Muslim Scholars or IFMS, where many argue the military ousting of Egypt's first democratically elected president is a "coup."

The report by WAM quoted UAE Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash as saying, "We waited from our neighbor to give enough clarification and guarantees that such incident of defaming and incitement won't happen (again)."

"We waited for our neighbor to express a clear rejection of such encroachment and to provide explanations and adequate guarantees for the non-occurrence of such a distortion and incitement," Gargash said, adding that the UAE respects freedom of opinion and expression, but it rejects any speech that incites violence and hatred.

He continued that the UAE has "in the past days worked to contain this (situation) to uphold our brotherly relations and stop any strife from happening, but we found ourselves compelled to take this unprecedented step in our Gulf relations."