Seizure of Orient House – OIC statement – Letter from Qatar

Letter dated 13 August 2001 from the Permanent Representative of Qatar

to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

I have the honour, in my capacity as Chairman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to transmit herewith to you the text of a statement by an official source at the Foreign Ministry of the State of Qatar on 12 August 2001 (see annex), concerning the State of Qatar’s condemnation and denouncement of Israel for the seizure of the Orient House and for shutting down Palestinian establishments in East Jerusalem.

I should be grateful if you would have the present letter and its annex circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda items 40 and 41, and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser

Ambassador

Permanent Representative

Annex to the letter dated 13 August 2001 from the Permanent Representative of Qatar

to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

[Original: Arabic]

The State of Qatar, in its capacity as current Chairman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has expressed its condemnation and denunciation of Israel’s occupation of Orient House in East Jerusalem and of its use of military aircraft to attack premises belonging to the Palestinian Police. Such acts of provocation are in absolute breach and flagrant violation of all the agreements signed by the Palestinian and Israeli parties, and they bring the peace process to the verge of total collapse.

An official source thus affirmed that Israel must comply with all the covenants and resolutions that embody international legitimacy, called upon the international community to condemn these actions in the strongest terms and urged the United Nations and the Security Council to meet their responsibility to take action to halt iniquitous and unwarranted Israeli practices.

The co-sponsors of the peace process, the United States and the Russian Federation, as well as the European Union must intervene forthwith in order to halt the grievous Israeli violations and outrages to which the Palestinian people is being subjected and must bring pressure to bear on Israel to withdraw its military forces and evacuate Orient House in East Jerusalem.

In concluding his statement, the source stressed that the State of Qatar, as current Chairman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, would support the Palestinian people in its just struggle to regain its land and the exercise of its legitimate rights in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions and the Madrid Conference formula as exemplified by the principle of land for peace.

Doha, 12 August 2001