Ahmadi-nejad was the most senior Iranian official ever to visit the island His trip was not announced in advance and he only remained a few hours.
UAE Foreign Minister Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed an-Nahayan said the visit “is a flagrant violation of UAE sovereignty over its territory and a transgression of efforts to find a peaceful settlement to end the Iranian occupation of the three UAE islands.”
The UAE recalled its ambassador from Tehran in a classic diplomatic show of irritation and also canceled a friendly soccer match that had been scheduled for this week between the national teams of the two countries. The foreign ministers of the Persian Gulf Arab states also scheduled a meeting for this week to discuss what to do about Abu Musa in the wake of the Ahmadi-nejad visit.
Many of the UAE’s Arab neighbors along the Persian Gulf joined in denouncing the visit by Ahmadi-nejad, with Saudi Arabia calling the trip a “violation of UAE sovereignty.” Even the new Libyan government spoke out to express “deep concern” over the visit and to urge Iran to “refrain from such moves.”
Abu Musa has a population of about 2,000 Arabs. It has long been contested along with two nearby unpopulated islands, the Greater and Lesser Tunbs.
Britain controlled the islands for decades. When it was preparing to pull out of the Persian Gulf and give independence to the new United Arab Emirates and to Bahrain in 1971, it made a deal with the Shah. Iran would drop its claims to Bahrain, would get the Tunbs instead, and both the UAE and Iran would claim sole ownership to Abu Musa while actually operating something of a joint possession.
That worked fine for about a decade. But after the revolution, the Islamic Republic fully occupied Abu Musa, built extensive military installations and now runs it as a county within Hormuzgan province. Ahmadi-nejad’s visit to the island was part of long-planned visit to Hormuzgan province.
The UAE has not been passive since the takeover. It flogs the issue loudly throughout the Arab world, where Iran is castigated for “occupying Arab territory,” putting it on a par with Israel. Every pan-Arab gathering issues a communiquÈ with a paragraph denouncing Iran’s occupation of the three islands.
The UAE has proposed taking the dispute to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, but Iran has refused to do so and says the solution lies only in bilateral talks.
The Fars news agency belittled the Arab hullabaloo over the three islands Monday, asking why Saudi Arabia had been so silent for so long about the Israeli occupation of two Saudi islands, Tiran and Sanafir, which lie between Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian Sinai.
Fars said, “Israeli forces have occupied the two islands since 1967, but the Saudi people are not aware of the issue and the Saudi monarch has not made any effort to regain the territory.”
Actually, the island of Sanafir is uncontested Saudi territory run by Saudi Arabia. Tiran is claimed by both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, not Israel. It is occupied by the Egyptian military. The Israelis occupied Tiran in the 1956 and 1967 wars. But returned it to Egypt both times in the peace agreements that returned the Sinai to Egypt.