August 08, 2014
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) complained Monday to the UN that Iran has raised its flag over the island of Abu Musa, and Tehran responded by accusing the UAE of interfering in its internal affairs.
The UAE complains annually to the UN about Iran’s occupation of Abu Musa. Under a secret deal that Britain worked out in 1971 when the UAE was created, the UAE and Iran were to jointly administer the island while both claimed ownership and simply ignored the other’s claim. This worked until 1980 when the revolutionary government of Iran took full control of Abu Musa and booted UAE officials off the island.
UAE Ambassador to the UN Lana Zaki Nusseibeh wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Monday protesting the exclusive use of the Iranian flag on Abu Musa.
“The Government of the United Arab Emirates strongly protests against that step, which it considers to be a flagrant violation of the memorandum of understanding (MOU),” she wrote. The UAE “stresses that the 1971 memorandum of understanding did not transfer sovereignty over the island of Abu Musa or any part thereof to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” she wrote, complaining that since 1980, Iran took measures on the island that “violate the MOU with a view to bringing the island under Iranian sovereignty.”
“The Government of the United Arab Emirates hereby calls on the Islamic Republic of Iran to rescind those measures, immediately remove the Iranian flag and comply scrupulously with the 1971 memorandum of understanding,” Nusseibeh said in her letter.
She recalled that every year her government calls on Iran, through the UN General Assembly, to agree that the question of the three “Arabian Gulf” islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa “should be referred to the International Court of Justice, unless the two countries can reach a negotiated solution within an agreed time frame.”
Iran has said for three decades that it is willing to talk to the UAE bilaterally, but has refused to allow a court to resolve the dispute.
In a letter of response to the secretary general, Iranian Charge d’Affaires Hossein Dehghani cited Iran’s “full sovereignty” over the three “Iranian islands,” insisting that the decisions and measures undertaken there by Iranian officials have “always been conducted on the basis of the principles of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Therefore, he said, the content of Nusseibeh’s letter is “deemed as interference in the internal affairs of Iran, which categorically rejects its provisions.”
He said Tehran has “always pursued a policy of friendship and good-neighborliness with all neighboring countries, and in this context once again expresses its readiness to engage in bilateral talks with the United Arab Emirates, with a view to continuing to strengthen bilateral relations and removing any misunderstanding that may exist between the two countries.”
However, he wrote, “It is obvious that the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran over the said islands is not negotiable.”
He also took the opportunity to remind Nusseibeh that “Persian Gulf is the only true geographical designation for the body of water lying between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, and has been used from the dawn of history.” He said the UN use of “Persian Gulf should be respected by all, and any use of fabricated names for this body of water, (including Arabian Gulf), is not acceptable and must be stopped.”
