The turnabout by the UAE came out of the clear blue sky with no previous hint of any developments on the long-festering islands issue.
Iran later confirmed that the two countries would be opening talks on the issue of Abu Musa, and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, which are claimed by the UAE but have been occupied by Iran for decades.
For decades, Iran has said the controversy could only be resolved in bilateral talks. The UAE saw that as a ploy by Iran to avoid any settlement, since the UAE would have no leverage in bilateral talks. The UAE called for international arbitration and suggested that the dispute could be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the formal name of what is commonly known as the World Court. But the court only accepts such cases when both countries agree the court should hear an issue, and Iran never agreed to allow the court to take up the islands’ case.
Last week, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers met in Abu Dhabi as they do quarterly. The GCC was founded early in the Iran-Iraq war by the six Arab states on the south side of the Persian Gulf who feared the repercussions of the war. The GCC comprises Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
The communiqué issued at the end of every one of these meetings always includes a paragraph denouncing Iran for its continued occupation of the disputed islands. Iran always denounces the denunciation, thereby giving more publicity to the disagreement.
But last week, the communiqué said the UAE told the ministers “to ignore the issue of its occupied islands as the UAE and Iran have reached a bilateral agreement to create the appropriate circumstances to help solve the problem, including not mentioning anything about the problem in this communiqué.”
UAE Foreign Minister Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed An-Nahayan later confirmed that Iran and the UAE would hold bilateral talks. And in Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast called the absence of any criticism in the GCC communiqué “a positive step” and said Iran was ready for “face-to-face and direct talks” on the islands.
There was no hint on why the UAE had changed its posture of decades and was now ready for bilateral talks. But the developments suggested Iran had made some kind of offer of a settlement privately to the UAE to resolve an issue which hurts Iran in the Arab world, where Iran is routinely slammed for “occupying Arab territory,” thus lumping Iran with Israel.
In 1971, when the British were leaving the Persian Gulf and giving full independence to the small Arab states that had been under the British empire, London made a deal with the Shah. Iran dropped its long claim to Bahrain and recognized it as an independent state. In exchange, Iran received the Tunbs and got to share joint sovereignty with the newly-formed UAE over Abu Musa.
Abu Musa has a population of several hundred Arabs. Greater Tunb is a small island with no resident population, though Iran has deployed troops there. The Lesser Tunb is a pile of rocks that has been described as more a navigational hazard than an island.
The 1971 settlement prevailed until a few years after the 1979 revolution when the Islamic Republic effectively seized Abu Musa, circling the island with military installations and ignoring the UAE civilian authorities. Iran no longer recognizes any UAE authority over Abu Musa. Once Abu Musa was taken over, the UAE began to complain about the occupation of the Tunbs, something it had previously ignored.
But the island trio is not the only point of friction between the two countries. In recent weeks, the Islamic Republic has begun criticizing the UAE over two other issues.
First, Iran has begun complaining that the UAE mistreats Iranian visitors to the UAE. Last week, on the very same day that the UAE told the GCC to turn silent on the islands, Iran’s ambassador to the UAE. Mohammad-Reza Fayyaz, cited instances of Dubai police mistreating Iranian nationals, saying books had been confiscated from visiting university professors and UAE visas had been denied to Iranian nationals without any reason being given. (Iran does not give reasons when it denies visas; it is very rare for any country to do so.) Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim responded that mistreatment of Iranians arriving at the airport was rare and the result of security officers making mistakes.
Second, Iranian officials in the past week have vocally complained about the UAE program for creating artificial islands in the Persian Gulf, something the UAE has been doing for years. Mehman-Parast said the artificial islands could impact the ecology, but also have a security impact. There appeared to be a suspicion that the UAE was building islands in anticipation of claiming the surrounding waters as UAE territory and thus pushing its sovereignty farther out into the Persian Gulf. One news article about the artificial islands said one was due to be built close to Abu Musa.
