By IANS,
Dubai : The Arab Interim Parliament (AIP) has asked Iran to end its occupation of the three islands of Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunbs belonging to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In a resolution adopted at the end of the second session of AIP committee meeting Monday, the AIP strongly criticised the recent Iranian action of constructing two offices on the Abu Musa Island, the state-run Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported from Cairo.
“The resolution described Iran’s arbitrary move as the flagrant violation of the UN conventions and the international law,” the report said.
Iran had, in early August, opened two offices for ship registration and maritime rescue on the Abu Musa island, which have been under Iranian occupation since 1971.
Abu Musa, along with the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, lie in the eastern Arabian Gulf, 12 km from each other, and are part of a six-island archipelago near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier this month, the ministerial council of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) had also condemned Iran’s action of opening the two offices on Abu Musa.
The council, in the course of the GCC ministerial meeting in Jeddah, had urged Iran to withdraw those illegal structures and to respect the UAE’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The UAE has also lodged its official protest to the United Nations over Iran’s action.
In a letter delivered to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last month by Anwar Othman Al-Barout, charge d’affaires of the UAE mission in the UN, the UAE reiterated its protest over the illegal Iranian action and considered it a stark violation of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in 1971 between the two countries on legal and administrative authority on sovereignty of the island.
In Monday’s resolution, the AIP said that “the illegal construction of the two structures is a direct violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the United Arab Emirates”.