Iran rejects report on negotiated deal with UAE over Trio islands

The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday categorically rejected a US media report claiming that Tehran has come into terms with the UAE over the sovereignty of its trio islands, stressing that Abu Musa, the Greater Tunb and the Lesser Tunb islands in the Persian Gulf are inseparable parts of Iran. “The Iranian embassy (in the UAE) has rejected the claim of the journal (US Defense News), and I reiterated here that the report is completely false and no agreement has been made (on the three islands),” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said in her weekly press conference in Tehran on Tuesday. Afkham described the report as a propaganda effort made to harm the policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She said the "fabricated report” of the US Defense News aimed to influence the public opinion, and said, “No change has been made in the Islamic Republic’s positions on the Iranian islands.” The US-based Defense News alleged in a recent report that Iran and the United Arab Emirates have reached an agreement on the three disputed islands near the Strait of Hormuz. The American media outlet quoted unnamed sources in the UAE as saying that Iranian and UAE officials have engaged in secretive talks with the help of the Omani government over the past six months. “A deal has been reached and finalized on the Greater and Lesser Tunbs,” the source said. “For now, two of the three islands are to return to the UAE, while the final agreement for Abu Musa is being ironed out.” In relevant remarks on Monday, Rapporteur of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Seyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini also slammed the US media outlet for releasing "a completely forged and untrue story", saying that the West is seeking to trouble Iran's good and improving relations with other Persian Gulf littoral states. “Iran has never negotiated over its trio islands, as it sees this issue which falls under our country's territorial integrity as basically non-negotiable,” Naqavi Hosseini told FNA yesterday. “The three islands of Abu Musa, the Greater Tunb and the Lesser Tunb are inseparable parts of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s soil,” he stressed. Iranian officials have on many occasions rejected the claims raised by the UAE on the three Iranian islands, underlining that such statements are baseless and unfounded. International documents clearly show that the three islands of the Greater Tunb, the Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa which were historically owned by Iran, temporarily fell to British control in 1903. The islands were returned to Iran based on an agreement in 1971 before the UAE was born. Iran has repeatedly declared that its ownership of the three islands is unquestionable. Under international law, no state can defy any agreement, which came into being before its establishment. Yet, the UAE continues to make territorial claims against the Islamic Republic despite historical evidence and international regulations.