TEHRAN, May 28 (Mehr News Agency) -- "The deployment of three U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf has increased insecurity in the region," former Iranian representative to the United Nations Disarmament Commission Ali Khorram said here on Monday.

"The vessels that make a passage are not allowed to conduct coercive measures against any country or to undermine their sovereignty", Khorram stated in a lecture entitled "The Legal Situation of the Passage of Warships through the Strait of Hormuz and Their Presence in the Persian Gulf and Their Effects on the Peace and Security in the Region" delivered at the seventeenth "Persian Gulf Security and International Law" conference.

Noting that the Persian Gulf is a completely demarcated and closed region, the political analyst said that the innocent passage of vessels is allowed granted that it does not threaten the security of coastal countries.

Iran's strategy should be cooperation with regional countries, he added, saying that any violation of Iranian territorial waters is also a violation of the territories of the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and other countries of the region.

Asserting that the U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz are violating the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III), he explained that the U.S. warships are passing through the water between Iranian islands and not international waters, and their passage is neither an innocent nor a transit passage.

Dr. Ahmad Jalinusi of Isfahan University also delivered a speech entitled "The Artificial Islands in the Persian Gulf".

The Persian Gulf region has long been subject to various tensions, a significant proportion of which consist of territorial disputes, he stated.

"The fact that 65 percent of the world's oil reserves are located in this region doubles the importance of such matters," he added.

Pointing to the territorial disputes between Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, he said that Iran-UAE relations have been tense for a while due to the UAE's claims of sovereignty over three Iranian islands.

"The construction of artificial islands in the Persian Gulf might turn into a threatening matter for regional nations," he observed, adding that Iran should seriously object to this and prevent the implementation of the United Arab Emirates' new projects.

... Payvand News - 5/29/07 ...

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