From the Gulf Cooperation Council to the European Union
The recent statement by the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council should be considered a weakness for the European External Action Service, which is more of a political haste based on a misunderstanding of the situation that the EU wants to use for a cost-free forward escape.
European countries, by forming the union, intended to significantly increase their ability to act and play a role by building larger and stronger multilateralism, disrupting the balance of traditional bipolar systems, and removing Europe from the buffer zone of powers.
However, this union could not demonstrate an independent and decisive nature in dealing with the most important regional and global issues.
From the perspective of peace and security, which alongside freedom of movement and democracy are the main foundations of the union, the Balkan crisis, which turned one of the darkest pages of crimes against humanity in Europe, was a major failure for the passive union and showed that the conservative and uninventive European union has a long way to go to achieve not global but regional leadership qualifications.
The European Union’s entry into the nuclear issue of the Islamic Republic of Iran was another European ambition for playing bigger roles, which over nearly 20 years showed that Europe did not see itself as more than a messenger between Iran and the US.
When Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, Europeans could not preserve it. Europe, in a symbolic move, established a financial channel called INSTEX to maintain the JCPOA despite Trump’s withdrawal. This grand mechanism, under the fear of US reaction, could not even introduce a single European bank for trade with Iran and thus dissolved without any commercial exchange.
The UAE and the attempt to create international documentation on the UAE’s claim over the three Iranian islands is not a unique and singular issue because there are many territorial disputes between countries worldwide.
The young and recent government of the United Arab Emirates, in a new policy, is taking international documentation steps for its long-term goals. The UAE, aware of its major weakness of lacking a historical state background, is trying to set its departure point in the historical making of the three Iranian islands from 1971 onwards and document such actions for its future legal actions.
The UAE’s attempt to internationalize the issue and gain legitimacy in its favor began with the inclusion of the three islands’ issue in the Gulf Cooperation Council meetings and now includes this matter in bilateral agreements with other countries using the lure of economic attractions.
The UAE’s creeping actions began with the inclusion of seemingly neutral paragraphs in agreements with China and Russia, which in fact are strongly against the clear national interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran because firstly, including this topic implies a tacit acknowledgment of its existence by Russia and China, and secondly, it is an indirect violation of Iran’s territorial integrity.
The joint statement of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the European Union indicates the continuation of the UAE’s creeping movement based on a misunderstanding of the Middle East crisis and this country’s opportunism regarding the situation facing Iran. The designation of Iran as the occupier of the islands and the not-so-decisive European Union’s endorsement also reflect this incorrect understanding of Iran in Europe.
Firstly, Europe must answer for its unlawful labeling and interference because, according to international law, occupation refers to a situation where, during an international armed conflict, a territory or parts of it come under the effective temporary control of a foreign power.
While for the reasons detailed below, they have always belonged to Iran and have been occupied by foreign powers at times in history.
1. From ancient times and the era of great empires, the Persian Gulf and its islands have been part of the great empire of Iran.
2. After the Treaty of Westphalia and the establishment of the nation-state in Iran, the Safavid government emerged as the first Iranian nation-state, and in conditions where the southern Persian Gulf sands were dwelling places for tribes and clans, the national government of Iran had territorial sovereignty over the entire Persian Gulf and its islands. 3. At times, the Iranian government leased commercial exploitation of the Persian Gulf islands to local sheikhs through contracts, such as the leasing of Lengeh and Hormuz by the sheikhs of Muscat or the Qasemi sheikhs whose settlements were on both sides of the Persian Gulf. 4. While the UAE wants to portray the islands’ dispute as a post-1971 issue, there are very strong international documents proving Iran’s sovereignty over these islands.
The British consulate in Bushehr, in its repeated reports between 1878 and 1887, stated that the Qasemi of southern Iran were subordinates of the Shah of Iran and in this capacity governed the islands of Abu Musa, Tunb, and Siri. The consulate’s documents also confirm that taxes collected from the islands were delivered as tribute to the General Governorship of Iran in Fars Province.
5. British maps, including a map given by the British Foreign Minister to the Shah of Iran in 1888, show all the islands of the Strait of Hormuz, Siri, Qeshm, Abu Musa, and the Tunbs in the color of Iran. 6. The Viceroy of India’s map of Iran from 1983 and the India Survey map from 1897 also show the islands of Abu Musa, Little Tunb, and Greater Tunb in Iranian color. 7. In 1903, the British government, which held naval power in the Persian Gulf, forcibly lowered the Iranian flag from the three islands. This British action was due to London’s fear of the Persian Gulf being seized by Russia and Germany and their greed for India. The Qasemi tribes, whose agency in the islands Iran had severed, refused to obey the government and, using the pretext that the islands were their habitat, raised their flag under British support on the islands, marking the real beginning of the occupation of Iranian islands by foreigners.
8. The Iranian governments during the Qajar and Pahlavi eras consistently protested the occupation of the three islands by Britain until they were reclaimed, and Iran never forgot or remained silent on its ownership of these islands. Documents of Iran’s protests are kept in the UK National Archives. 9. Iran’s history has always been a scene of colonial competition between the two powers of Russia and Britain. Large parts of Iran were divided and separated from the country through various colonial treaties, but Iran has used every opportunity it had to restore its territorial integrity. An example is the establishment of the self-proclaimed republics of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan under Soviet protection, where the central government reasserted its sovereignty over these provinces following the withdrawal of occupying forces. 10. The restoration of Iran’s sovereignty over the three islands was carried out in accordance with international law, and Iran exercised its territorial authority a day before British forces left the islands, and the occupying British forces peacefully and by mutual agreement returned the islands to the Iranian government as their rightful owner, and the Iranian flag was raised in their presence on the islands. Thus, the use of the term occupation by the UAE is baseless and unfounded. The point is why the European Union now boldly signs a statement that baselessly and without foundation accuses a third country of occupation, incurring significant legal responsibility.
In the 50th year of a baseless claim, today the union hastily takes the side of a state that has the least legal and historical evidence for its claim and uses harsh words against Iran that it has been reluctant to use for Israel for seventy years. What the European Union endorses in its final statement at the cost of economic attractions is the result of incorrect speculations and deductions about the near future of the Middle East crisis. It is clear that Europeans are taking their eggs out of Iran’s basket because, in their analyses, they have reached a point of no return for military confrontation between Iran and the US and Israel and presumably imagine Iran as the loser of the great future conflict. It is under this belief that they have convinced themselves of a matter for which they have no historical, legal, or international justification for unilateral entry and commentary.
The European Union perceives its support for the UAE as cost-free and has sold what it thinks are free phrases at a high price to the Gulf sheikhs. This policy has also worked with Russia and China, and the UAE eagerly continues this trend to address Iran with harsher terms, wrapping a rope around Iran’s distant future. It is not far-fetched that with this method, the UAE buys implicit endorsements of its sovereignty over the three islands, purchasing more fragile words against Iran with oil dollars and embedding them in bilateral and multilateral agreement documents. Of course, the UAE cannot buy allies with money because those who come with monetary temptation will also flee with the threat of fear. Europe has shown that it is by no means a strategic ally and has always been a follower of its greater power. The UAE’s recent actions are opportunistic moves that have intensified with increased tensions in Iran-West relations.
The fantasy that the UAE is currently pursuing is the same action that Iran’s leased sheikhs took when British colonialism entered the Persian Gulf, refusing to obey the central government and, aware of the Iranian government’s military weakness and resorting to British naval power, claimed the Iranian islands as their own. Today, the UAE has mistakenly concluded in its assessments that Iran will be the loser of a war that is imminent with the US and Israel.
Iran should not allow the UAE to fish in troubled waters. Today’s statements by China, Russia, the US, and the European Union can become referable documents in the distant future and be the basis for the global community’s judgment. These statements can provide the UAE with legal documents for a 50-year period.
On Iran’s side, practically no international legal production has been made, and there is a gap that can be detrimental to the country. Our Foreign Minister has defined the fourteenth government’s policy against the US as managing disputes. Perhaps managing disputes can be defined in practice more understandably as the necessity to turn confrontation with the US into opposition to the US. Iran, by maintaining its principles, can change its strategy from confrontation, which includes full-scale confrontation with the prominence of the physical element, to opposition, which emphasizes the diplomatic element. This management of disputes can correct the miscalculations from the UAE to Europe.