The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has on Thursday recalled its ambassador to Iran for consultation, following a controversial visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the previous day to a disputed island in the Gulf, the official WAM news agency reported.

"The Foreign Ministry recalled today Saif Mohammed Obaid Al Zaabi, UAE's ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran, for consultation," according to the WAM.

There is no immediate official comment from Tehran concerning the recalling of the ambassador.

In an earlier post, the WAM said that the UAE Federal National Council (FNC) "strongly denounced" the visit of Ahmadinejad to the disputed island of Abu Mousa.

"The visit is a flagrant violation to the UAE sovereignty over its territories, and a setback to all efforts made by the UAE to put an end to the occupation of the UAE's three Islands of the Greater and Lesser Tunbs and Abu Mousa through direct negotiations or resorting to the International Court of Justice (ICJ)," the WAM quoted an FNC statement as saying.

Iran and the UAE both claimed territorial sovereignty over the three islands and have been at odds over them for decades.

According to the WAM, the FNC has called on Iran to adopt peaceful ways to "help reach just settlement of the issue of the occupied three UAE Islands since 1971."