Turkey summoned a senior United Arab Emirates diplomat on Thursday to complain about a tweet by an Emirati minister that infuriated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, state media reported.

The Emirates' foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan this week retweeted a post on Twitter in which a user made allegations of historic misdoings by "ancestors of Erdogan".

The tweet alleged that a former Ottoman governor pillaged and kidnapped people from the pilgrimage city of Medina in the early 20th century.

The Turkish foreign ministry summoned the Emirati charge d'affaires in Ankara on Thursday and complained about the post, state news agency Anadolu said.

The charge d'affaires was the top UAE diplomat currently present in Turkey as the ambassador was temporarily absent.

The offending tweet was posted by a user called "Ali al-Iraqi", presenting himself as an Iraqi dentist living in Germany.

"Ali al-Iraqi" said Fahreddin Pasha -- Medina governor from 1916 to 1919 -- "committed a crime against the people of Medina by stealing their money, kidnapping them and putting them on trains that took them to Syria and Istanbul".

The user added: "Those are the ancestors of Erdogan and this is the history that they have with Arab Muslims."