CONFIDENTIALCONFIDENTIAL
eura
1002euren
apy bun Rus
British Embassy,
Tehran.7 October 19712
RECEIVED IN
REGISTRY No. 9needehhos 13/11 OCT 1971
Tagok pahanterly to see fIran, the UAE and the United Nations
While waiting to join you in Audience with the Shah on6 October, Mr. Afshar and I examined the reasons, from theUnited Nations angle, for Iran's insistence on gaining controlof the islands before the Union comes into existence. Itmay be useful to record the points made to counter Mr.Afshar's arguments
(a)
The Shah had indicated to me on 29 June that he did notcare what the United Nations reactions might be, in theevent of a forceful seizure of the islands leading toan initiative in the UN critical of Iran. If thereforeIran dismissed the importance of any UN reaction to anIranian seizure of the islands, it was irrelevant toIran whether the risk of an established Union taking theislands' issue to the United Nations might be greaterthan the risk of its being raised there while Britainremained responsible for Sharjah's internationalrelations. The former risk could not be used by Iranas a serious argument for opposing the formal establishmentof the Union in advance of a settlement of the islandsquestion.
In any case, a Union aggrieved by the seizure of part of aconstituent member, shortly before its formal establishment,could make almost as much fuss at the United Nations as anewly-constituted Union, newly admitted to the UN, fromwhich Iran had snatched the islands. If there was anydifference in the volume of fuss that could be made at theUnited Nations in the two cases, then this difference wouldsurely not be so great as to decide Iran to take the veryserious step of deliberately damanging Anglo-Iranianrelations across the board.
Iran could not in any case be certain of avoiding UNtrouble by taking the islands prior to the establishmentof the Union Sharjah could abrogate its treaty withBritain and could itself, as an aggreived State, or someother country on its behalf, opt for the matter to beconsidered in the Security Council. The fact that therewould be room for legal argument about whether Iran had.taken the islands from an independent state or from aprotected one, would be only a marginal considerationin the debate that would result from the fact that anArab plaintiff would be accusing Iran of an alleged"breach of the UN Charter.
هاگ ها
Peter Ramsbotham
Sir William Luce, GBE, KCMG,F.C.0.Copy to Sir Colin Crowe, KCMG,
CONFIDENTIAL
UKMIS New York
