‘UAE Failed to Abuse Its Privilege of Hosting OIC Meeting’

Elaborating on what happened during the final day of the OIC foreign ministers’ meeting in Abu Dhabi, Qassemi said during the day when the documents were set to be discussed and approved as a matter of routine, the UAE Foreign Minister, Sheik Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, put forth a text under the title of Abu Dhabi Declaration.

“The foreign minister intended to get the document approved as the final declaration of the meeting without consulting with the participating delegations. However, the way he was running the meeting sparked immediate protest by delegates from Iran and Pakistan,” Qassemi said in a Saturday statement.

The spokesman said despite protests by the delegates of Iran and some other countries, the UAE foreign minister was trying to abuse the privilege of hosting the OIC meeting in violation of all known regulations.

“The foreign minister ignored the protests and began to impose his will on the delegates. He then announced the text as what he called the ‘final declaration of the meeting’,” Qassemi said.

The Iranian delegation made a timely and strong objection and walked out of the meeting in protest at the Emirati diplomat’s move, as the UAE-drafted document included the Arab country’s unfounded claim on the three Iranian Persian Gulf islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa.

“The meeting got tense after the Iranian delegation’s walkout and consequently other delegates began to leave the meeting gradually,” he noted.

Therefore, Qassemi said, the UAE failed to achieve the illegitimate goal it had in mind.

The Iranian delegation, through its protests, dismissed the UAE-drafted final declaration as invalid, he said.

The spokesman noted that all the events were unfolded before the final ceremony, and as a result of that, the closing ceremony was not held in a break from the routine in such international meetings.

“From the Islamic Republic of Iran’s point of view, the declaration drafted by the UAE on the final day of the meeting lacks credibility and is unreliable,” he said.

“As previously noted, in an unconsidered and unprofessional and completely primitive way, the UAE foreign minister intended to impose the unilateral declaration on the delegations but to no avail,” Qassemi said.

The spokesman then underlined that there is no doubt on Iran’s sovereignty over the trio islands and said, “Such unconsidered and fruitless efforts have never had and will never have any effect on Iran’s right over the islands and the Islamic Republic will not sit back an inch from its historical and absolute right.”

In addition to the issue of the Iranian islands, the declaration also raised concerned over that it called Iran’s meddling in internal affairs of the region and called on the Islamic Republic to “reassess its policies”.