Days before Pakistan had helped to secure a ceasefire in the Iran war this week, the United Arab Emirates was seeking repayment of a US$3.5 billion deposit from Islamabad’s central bank.

The withdrawal, brushed off as a “routine financial transaction” by Pakistan’s foreign ministry, equated to roughly 21 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange reserves. It was accompanied by a wave of criticism on Emirati social media directed at Islamabad.

“When our security is directly threatened, we hear diplomacy, but not clarity,” read one typical response from the UAE to a social media post by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif laying out the terms of the Iran war ceasefire deal on Thursday.

“Friendship is tested in moments like these. And today, many of us are simply asking: where do you stand?”

UAE law prohibits criticism of the country’s allies. The federation of seven hereditary Gulf monarchies tightly regulates social media activity and has detained scores of foreign nationals in recent weeks for posting videos of Iranian attacks online in direct defiance of government orders.

Which means, analysts say, that the social media users who rounded on Sharif – accusing Pakistan of choosing diplomacy over solidarity and standing against a partner that had bankrolled Islamabad for years – were likely operating with the authorities’ tacit approval.