Envoy Hits Back at Emirati FM’s Anti-Iran Remarks in UN Speech

Iranian diplomat Abbas Yazdani exercised the right to reply in the UN General Assembly on Monday in reaction to the comments that the Emirati foreign minister had made against Iran in his September 24 address to the annual session of the General Assembly.

Yazdani slammed the allegations as repulsive and decried the Emirati government for entering an alliance with the Israeli regime, participating in a Saudi-led military campaign against the people of Yemen, and assaulting Iran's territorial integrity by repeating baseless claims about Iran's three islands in the Persian Gulf.

The following is the full text of the Iranian envoy’s speech:

Mr. President

The Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates, in his address to the General Assembly on Saturday, repeated a number of baseless and absurd fabrications against my Government. The same absurd accusations have been also leveled by the same and other UAE officials on some other occasions, but no effort has been ever made to substantiate them or provide any proof to support them. They are flatly wrong in their thinking that repetition may make a claim credible. Conversely, repetition makes baseless claims tedious and repulsive.

It is absurd and hypocritical for the official of a country whose jet fighters are bombing innocent civilians in Yemen to accuse Iran of interfering into domestic affairs of other countries. It is also farcical to witness a regime who, along with some other accomplices, have been exporting a host of extremist, Takfiri ideologies for decades and funding and arming terrorists in Iraq and Syria and in many other places, just to take the floor in the UN to accuse Iran of trying to export revolution. 

This Emirati official once again assaulted Iran's territorial integrity by repeating baseless claim to Iran's three Islands in the Persian Gulf. We have always rejected this falsehood and reiterated that these Islands have and continue to be part of Iranian territory, and no claim, no matter how many times repeated, won't be able to dent it in any way and undermine our resolve to refute such claim.

Moreover, taking the Emirati and Israeli representatives’ interventions in the Assembly together, we may understand better the line in the Israeli statement, when he talked of increasing understanding between the Israeli regime and some regimes in the region. In that light, we can understand that the focus of the UAE statement on Iran and Iran's three islands is not a pure coincidence. A review of these two statements clearly shows that how their two respective regimes are coming together and how the UAE and a few of its partners in the Persian Gulf are now coalescing with the Israelis; a coalition that could only be tantamount to betraying the Palestinian people.

The UAE official also referred to the JCPOA, or as he put it "the so-called nuclear agreement." We know that the UAE and some of its partners in the Persian Gulf region did whatever in their power to impede the road to this deal, to no avail. And we know that after the fruition of the JCPOA, they escalated their provocations against Iran to compensate for the detente that the deal brought about. It is unfortunate that our efforts to reduce tension in the region is not reciprocated by them and they continue to incite more tension in the region.  

Allow me Mr. President to refer also briefly to the statement by the Foreign Minister of Bahrain. He also repeated baseless accusations on the so-called Iran's intervention into Bahrain's domestic affairs, which is an obvious lie. Suffice-it just to remind him of the report of Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, set up by the Bahraini Government, known also as Bassiouni report, which reads in part and I quote: "The evidence presented to the Commission by the Government of Bahrain on the involvement by Iran in the internal affairs of Bahrain does not establish a discernable link between specific incidents that occurred in Bahrain and Iran", end of quote.

He also referred at length to the Mina disaster in September 2015 and leveled criticism against Iran that we reject. On this incident, while the precious lives of around 500 Iranian pilgrims were perished in this disaster, we rightly expected from the Saudis to adopt a responsible approach that has never been the case up to now. We note, with concern, that any findings from the local investigation on the tragedy, if any, is yet to be released. Our legitimate request for a thorough, transparent and independent investigation on the causes of this tragedy through a committee in which the representatives of the affected countries could participate has so far fallen on deaf ears. We note that the flawed management of the Hajj pilgrimage has caused numerous deadly accidents, thus we believe that effective actions should be taken to redress the situation.

A few speakers also used some false and incorrect terms to denote the Persian Gulf. We remind them that the traditional term Persian Gulf has been the correct appellation for this body of water from around 500 years before the Christ and will remain so for ever. It is a standardized geographical term, recognized by the international community, including the United Nations, and should not be tinkered with due to political projects and daily wishes of this or that ruler.

Last but not least, we have always endeavored towards removal of tension in our region and developing friendly and good-neighborly relationship with our neighbors, including those in the Persian Gulf. We once more reiterate our interest in and call for dialogue with a view to dispelling misunderstandings and restoring friendly relations that our peoples mostly enjoyed throughout history.

Thank you Mr. President;