Arab League’s Claims About Persian Gulf Islands Rejected

“Rehashing fruitless claims about the three Iranian islands has had, and will have no bearing on the existing historical and geographical realities,” Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Friday evening, according to the ministry’s website.

“These islands are an inseparable part of the Iranian territory,” he added. 

The top diplomat then highlighted Iran’s policy of good neighborliness and mutual respect vis-à-vis neighboring countries as well as non-interference in one another’s internal affairs.

He also expressed hope that the Arab League and some regional countries change their approach to one of dialogue and regional cooperation instead of issuing “hollow and provocative statements” that have no other result than the perpetuation of the current destructive trend.

The so-called Arab Ministerial Quartet Committee held a meeting in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Wednesday, which was chaired by the UAE and attended by representatives of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, as well as Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. 

In the meeting, foreign ministers of the Arab League reaffirmed UAE’s sovereignty over three islands that they claim have been occupied by Iran in the 1970s.

In a resolution adopted during the session, the top envoys denounced the Iranian government’s allegedly continued occupation of Abu Mousa, Lesser Tunb and Greater Tunb, and what they described as its “violation of UAE’s sovereignty in a way that destabilizes the region and threatens international peace and security”. 

The league’s council likewise condemned the Iranian government’s establishment of residential units for Iranian people on the islands, and requested Tehran “to stop such provocative acts that are considered interferences in the internal affairs of an independent, sovereign state in a way that threatens regional stability and endangers the safety of maritime navigation in the region”.

They also denounced Tehran’s opening of two offices in Abu Mousa island, which they have called for their removal, as well as the visits of senior Iranian officials to the three islands, and decried such aggressive steps taken by Tehran.

The spokesman regretted that some Arab countries are seeking to divert people’s attention from their wicked and destructive moves by creating a fictitious enemy instead of taking care of the key issues facing the Arab world, including attempts to pave the way for the occupying and destabilizing Israeli regime’s presence in the region, disregarding the cause of Palestine, perpetuating the cruel war against Yemen’s Arab people and creating the worst humanitarian disaster in the contemporary era, and continuing years-long support for terrorism and terrorist groups. 

Khatibzadeh noted that countries whose destructive aggression over the past six years has not only destroyed basic infrastructure in Yemen, but also caused hunger, disease, displacement and poverty among millions of people, and who have the blood of innocent people on their hands, are trying to evade responsibility for these crimes by pressing baseless charges.