IRAN REJECTED ARABS SUPPORT OF SHEYKHS CLAIMS ON ITS ISLANDS
TEHRAN 28 Mar. (IPS) Iran strongly rejected Thursday as "unacceptable" a call by the Arab leaders to support claims laid by the United Arab Emirtes on three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf.
"The islands of Abu Musa, and the Lesser and Greater Tunbs are, and will be, inseparable parts of the Iranian territory forever", said Mr. Hamid Reza Asefi, the senior spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.
He said any measure adopted by the Iranian government at any area within its own territory, including the Iranian islands, complies with the legitimate rights of Iran and is in line with the principles of Iran's national sovereignty, territorial integrity and due international norms.
In a communiqué issued earlier in the day in Beirut at the end of their two days meeting, Arab participants at the Summit expressed full support for the position of the United Arab Emirates and explicitly urged Iran, which was named, to recognise the sovereignty of the UAR over the islands.
Reacting to the endorsement by Arabs of the Saudi plan proposing official recognition of the Jewish State by all Arab nations against Israel’s full withdrawal from all the Arab territories it occupies and the establishment of a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its Capital, Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Kamal Kharrazi said the decision was "in its most optimistic sense, a repetition of past UN resolutions to solve the crisis in the occupied territories".
Quoted by IRNA, Mr. Kharrazi said the peace plan initiated by the Saudi Crown Prince Abdollah had been the "most generous proposal from Arab states (to Israel).
However, he said, Arab leaders should not yet expect a positive response from Israel given their previous reactions to similar UN resolutions to that effect.
"The question is how the Zionist regime has so far reacted to the previous UN resolutions on the issue of Palestine", he said.
Israel cold shouldered the Arabs "Beirut Declaration", saying it was "too vague" concerning the thorny and complicated issue of the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and refused to accept that Jerusalem be the Capital of the future Palestinian State.
"The Zionist regime has always sought to continue the massacre and assassination of Palestinians, to spread Jewish settlements, to occupy Arab lands, including the Holy Qods (Jerusalem) and to humiliate Palestinians, particularly the Palestinian refugees", he observed
Kharrazi said the reason Palestinians have resorted to uprising is their disappointment in peace talks with the "racist Zionist regime", and the Zionists' overlooking their legitimate rights of self-determination and return to homeland Palestine.
Although the Islamic Republic has always rejected any peace talks between the Arabs and the Israeli and supports Palestinian extremist groups that fight Israel, yet it has said it would respect the decision of the Palestinians to recognise the Jewish State. ENDS IRAN ARAB SUMMIT 28302