Page 406 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

340 THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE ARABIAN GULF STATES

and Iran, to take part in the debate, without the right to vote. During
the debate, the representative of Iraq condemned Iran's occupation
of the three islands as “a blatant aggression against all the Arab
people everywhere". He refuted Iran’s claim to the islands which,
he said, "had been under Arab jurisdiction for centuries". The Iraqi
representative outlined three reasons for Iran’s "invasion of
islands ’, namely, "alleged historical rights, filling a presumed
‘power vacuum’ in the area and finally, the strategic value to Iran of
the islands". He regarded those "arguments" as invalid1. As
regards the representative of Kuwait, he said that "Iran had
occupied the islands contrary to all Iranian traditions of solving
problems peacefully". He blamed Britain for not honouring her
responsibility to defend the islands, despite the fact that the special
treaty relations with the Arab Rulers who had sovereignty over the
islands "had not terminated at the time of Iran’s occupation of the
islands".2 The representative of Algeria stated that the "actions of
Iran were . . . contrary to the principles of the United Nations
Charter. . . ’’ Similarly, the representative of Southern Yemen
condemned Iran’s action and said that Britain was "responsible for
the arrogant and illegal action taken by Iran’’3. Regarding the
representative of the United Arab Emirates, he explained that "Iran
had never presented any convincing evidence of its claim to the
islands. It had refused to negotiate the matter with the U. A.E. and
had chosen to use force to settle its claim . . .’’4
On the other hand, the representative of Iran defended his
Government’s action and rejected the charges against his country as
"baseless". He said:
“The Iranian title to the islands was long-standing and substantial: both
maps, hundreds of years old and modern, highly authoritative
encyclopeadia treated the territories as belonging to Iran.
The Iranian representative added that
“in line with its policy of settling disputes by peaceful means, Iran had
tried first to settle the problem through negotiation. Those efforts had failed
and Iran had been left with no alternative but to exercise its sovereign
rights’’5.
The representative of the United Kingdom explained that his
Government was satisfied with the Agreement reached between the
Ruler of Sharjah and Iran on Abu Musa. As regards the two islands
of Tunb, he stated that "the United Kingdom had declared that it

1. Report of the Secretary-General (1971-72), op. cit.p. 76.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid, pp. 76-7.