UAE regime is silent on Iran’s announcement to annexing the occupied islands

The Emirati regime has remained silent on Iran’s official announcement to start a settlement project in the occupied UAE islands, and only made media reports that consider Tehran’s steps as a “provocation aimed at its neighbours.”

The Emirati regime did not issue any official comment on Iran’s announcement of its plans for a “settlement project” in the three occupied UAE islands, and that the Revolutionary Guards began implementing them after instructions from Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

In parallel, Al Ain news website affiliated with Emirati Intelligence commented that “Iran is launching provocative statements targeting its neighbours in the region.”

In an expression of the miserable state of the Emirati regime vis-a-vis Iran, the website considered that the Emirates “embarrassed Iran with its peaceful calls to resolve the crisis of the occupied islands while reflecting Tehran’s handling of its approach in the Arab Gulf region.”

Arab singers denounced the UAE’s involvement in wars and aggressive military interventions in Yemen, Libya and the Horn of Africa, at a time when it did not dare respond to Iran’s provocations and perpetuating its occupation of part of the UAE lands for decades.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guards naval force, Admiral Ali Reda Tinksery, said two days ago: “We intend to find the infrastructure in these islands to qualify them in order to resettle the residents there, according to the order issued by the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.”

He added: “When the first man in the country says that the people must be settled on these islands, this means that we are seeking for the security of the region.”

Regarding the plans for the mentioned project, Admiral Tinksery explained that airports and breakwaters on the islands will be built by the Revolutionary Guards naval force, explaining that this has already been done for some of the islands.

He added: “We have established an international airport on the Greater Tunb Island, as well as an airport on the Lesser Tunb Island, in addition to more than 50 breakwaters for citizens.”

Iran insists that “the three Iranian islands in the Gulf are an integral part of Iran, which will never give up its historical right in it,” while the UAE asserts that “Tehran is embarrassing itself by occupying the three islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa.”

These developments come at a time when Abu Dhabi continues its endeavors for rapprochement with Tehran, where the Iranian Foreign Ministry announced, last Sunday, in a brief statement, that the Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan called his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, expressing his country’s solidarity with Iran “government and people” in their fight against the Corona outbreak. In addition to that, there is a development of economic relations between the two countries, as the UAE ranked second in the world in terms of trade exchange with Iran, despite the US sanctions imposed on Iran.

The UAE-Iran relations are witnessing political tensions over the three islands of “Greater Tunb”, “Tunb Al-Soghra” and “Abu Musa”, which are disputed between the Emirates and Iran, which occupies these Emirati islands, while the UAE is the largest economic partner of Iran in the region.

The three islands are located in the Strait of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and Iran took control of it in 1971 with the withdrawal of British forces from the region, and there is no Gulf or international political meeting in which the UAE participates except and demands Iran to withdraw from it.

Iranian circles believe that the decision to rehabilitate these islands is a step in the right direction, even if it comes late, at a time when others called for speeding up its pace to ensure security and stability in it, and blocking the foreign military presence near it.

The islands of Tunb Al-Kubra, Tanab Al-Soghra and Abu Musa Island are disputed over their ownership with the Emirates, as the latter demands Iran to return them, while Tehran asserts that its ownership of the islands is “non-negotiable.”

Despite the small size of the three islands, their strategic and economic importance is very large, which is the reason for the dispute over them. They are located in a sensitive area of ​​the Gulf waters near the safe passages for marine navigation.

The majority of Emiratis demand that the state focus its efforts in the battle to liberate the islands of the occupied country Iran since 1971 and achieve the effective sovereignty of the state over all its lands.

Emirati activists assert that the occupation of the islands is not an ability for the Emiratis to acknowledge, especially in light of the growing strength of the state militarily and politically and interference in dozens of Arab and Islamic arenas, and to supply war criminal Khalifa Haftar with arms or as American media revealed that Abu Dhabi hired mercenaries to liquidate its political opponents in Yemen.