The Associated Press August 17, 2008
Arab League backs UAE in Abu Musa standoff
By Mahmoud Habboush
* Last Updated: August 17. 2008 10:42PM UAE / August 17. 2008 6:42PM GMT
Abu Dhabi // The Arab League’s secretary general, Amr Musa, reiterated yesterday the organisation’s deep concerns over Iran’s building of two marine offices on the occupied island of Abu Musa, fearing that it would exacerbate tension in the region.
Mr Musa urged Iran to stop such unilateral moves and echoed the UAE’s demands for direct negotiations or international arbitration over the issue.
Iran should respond positively to the Emirates’ efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the dispute, Mr Musa said.
According to a report on Iranian state television last week, one of the buildings is a marine rescue centre and the other is a registration office for ships and sailors.
In response, the Government handed a note of protest to Iran’s chargé d’affaires in the UAE.
A government official was quoted as saying “such illegitimate actions are a flagrant violation of the memorandum of understanding”, which was signed with Iran in November 1971.
The memorandum, officials say, acknowledged the UAE’s sovereignty over Abu Musa.
Although the memorandum was signed by the ruler of Sharjah, the federal Government has been in charge of the UAE’s efforts to end the occupation of three disputed islands, Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb.
Abu Musa island lies at the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz, which the US government’s Energy Information Agency identifies as the world’s most important oil “chokepoint”.
The agency’s figures for the first half of this year show that between 16.5 million and 17 million barrels per day flow through the Strait of Hormuz, amounting to almost 40 per cent of the world’s seaborne traded oil.
The row over the disputed island escalated over the weekend, as both the Federal National Council (FNC) and the GCC said Iran must accept the UAE’s sovereignty over the territory.
The FNC demanded that Tehran dismantle the two new buildings.
It was the first time in nearly a decade that Iranian officials had spoken about construction work on Abu Musa.
In March 1999, Iran established a municipality in Abu Musa, affiliated with its Bandar Abbas province.
Earlier that year, Iran built some civilian and military installations on the same island and deployed medium-range missiles.
That year also saw Iran carry out military exercises around Abu Musa, breaching the UAE’s territorial waters.
The website GlobalSecurity.org reported that Iran began deploying its Revolutionary Guards on the island in 1994, a number that reached more than 1,000 by March 1995.
The UAE and its allies have frequently expressed concern over ongoing construction on the three islands.
Earlier this year the Inter-Parliamentary Arab Union, in the closing statement of its meeting in Iraq, condemned Iran’s attempts to change the demographic structure of the three occupied islands by building houses for Iranian citizens.
The statement also denounced Iranian military exercises in and around the islands.
Analysts said the building work on the island could be viewed as part of an Iranian campaign against the Gulf states, which had included recent threats to close the Strait of Hormuz if Iran was attacked.
A Pentagon spokesman warned that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be self-defeating, considering Iran’s economy depended heavily on oil revenues.
Iranian threats to close the strait date back to 1971, when a top Iranian official said his country reserved the option of closing off the shipping route if it was threatened.
The commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, Maj Gen Mohammed Ali Jafari, said earlier this month that the Islamic republic could easily close the waterway.
Analysts say that Iran is capable of more than just threatening to choke off part of the world’s oil supply.
“All they need is to drown two tankers in two-mile wide shipping lanes [inbound and outbound],” said Dr Mustafa el Labbad, director of East Centre for Regional Strategic Studies in Cairo.
Dr Labbad said Iran’s insistence on maintaining control over the three islands was mostly prompted by its desire to control the sea lanes.
“Iran wants to assert its control over the island to show that it can close the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
Dr Labbad viewed the construction work as a message to the US that it controls the passage.
“The island can’t be used as military bases,” he said.
“The story is all about controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Otherwise the island is very small and has no economic resources and can be easily targeted.”
© Copyright 2008, Abu Dhabi Media Company FZLLC.
