At the start of the 22nd Gulf Cooperation Council summit, Iran has called on the members of the Council to pressure the UAE into accommodating Iran in the dispute over three strategic islands in the Gulf. Iran’s occupation of the UAE islands has been a constant obstacle to improving relations between Teheran and its neighbors. The UAE has been calling for legal resolution through an international court, which is expected to uphold the UAE’s legal claim, but Tehran has rejected any outside mediation in the dispute, insisting on a compromise with the UAE that would take its own needs into account.
Sunday’s editorial in Teheran’s Iran News Daily complained that previous summits had “traditionally tended to condemn and castigate Iran over the three disputed islands”. The paper then went on to say that while Iran had good mutual relations with most of its Gulf neighbors, these relations had never lead other Gulf countries to intervene in the dispute. In effect calling upon the members of the GCC to pressure the UAE into reaching a compromise on the islands, Teheran called upon the summit host, Oman, “to bring these Arab states in line with Iran”, noting that Oman was an old friend, which has been unique in maintaining its ties to Iran both before and after the 1979 revolution.
Of the three Gulf islands, the Big Tunb and the Little Tunb belong to Ras al Khaimah and Abu Musa belongs to Sharjah. The strategically and economically important islands were occupied by Iranian forces under the Shah three decades ago at the time the United Kingdom withdrew from the region, and remain garrisoned by Iranian troops to this day.
Although the UAE has built up good relations with Iran over the years, and has negotiated continuously to resolve the dispute, it has never abandoned its full legal claim to the islands. This stance has been supported by the UAE’s fellow GCC members, and has been a major hindrance to Iran’s relations with the countries of the Gulf. Teheran is now calling on these other GCC members to pressure the UAE to reach an accommodation.
Leaving no-one in doubt that the editorial was speaking directly for the Iranian leadership, the item ended with the following official declaration: “Iran hereby expresses its willingness and preparedness to hold and conduct negotiations with top-level officials of the U.A.E. in order to, once and for all, find a mutually palatable and reciprocally acceptable solution to this prolonged dispute”. (www.albawaba.com)
