Jerusalem – Statement by USSR FM – Letter from Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Letter dated 10 October 1990 from the Permanent Representative of

the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the United Nations

Addressed to the Secretary-General

I have the honour to communicate the text of a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR dated 9 October 1990.

I request that this letter and the annex thereto should be circulated as an official document of the General Assembly and the Security council under agenda items 23 and 35.

(Signed)  Yuliy M. VORONTSOV

ANNEX

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR

dated 9 October 1990

The Soviet Union expresses its profound concern over the report of a new outbreak of violence in the Palestinian lands.  In the clashes in Jerusalem with the Israeli police, who used weapons, dozens of Palestinians were killed or wounded  in the course of a single day, 8 October 1990, and hundreds were arrested, including a leading public figure, Faisal al-Husseini.

The USSR firmly condemns this action by the Israeli authorities and believes that the United Nations Security council must display the same unanimity and sense of purpose in its approach to the situation in the occupied territories as it effectively demonstrated with regard to Iraq's aggression against Kuwait.  As a preliminary step we support the idea of sending to the spot a special United Nations mission to investigate the incident.

The events in Jerusalem, which caused the loss of many human lives, exacerbate an already explosive situation in the Middle East region and create additional obstacles to the establishment of a peace process aimed at the search for a generally acceptable settlement of a the Arab-Israeli conflict.

They confirm yet again the need for the immediate implementation of far-reaching measures to improve the situation in the Middle East and settle all its existing conflicts, which have a destabilizing effect both on the region itself and on international relations as a whole.

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