Mideast situation/Palestine question – Letter from United Arab Emirates

Letter dated 18 April 2001 from the Permanent Representative

of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations addressed

to the Secretary-General

On instructions from my Government, I have the honour to transmit to you the press communiqué issued by an official source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates stating the position of the Government of the United Arab Emirates condemning the aggression committed by the Israeli forces against Lebanese territory on 16 April 2001 and their reoccupation of areas in the Gaza Strip.

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

(Signed) Mohammad J. Samhan

Ambassador

Permanent Representative

Annex to the letter dated 18 April 2001 from the Permanent Representative

of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations

addressed to the Secretary-General

Communiqué issued by an official source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

of the United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates condemns the attacks on Lebanese territory carried out by aircraft of the Israeli forces on 16 April 2001, which resulted in the destruction of a Syrian radar installation and the death or wounding of at least five soldiers. The United Arab Emirates considers this Israeli attack to be a flagrant violation of international law and a threat to security and stability in the Middle East and reaffirms its full solidarity with Syria and Lebanon in confronting the ongoing Israeli violations of the sovereignty of Lebanese territory.

We also call upon the international community to endeavour to halt these Israeli attacks and to implement resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 425 (1978) of the United Nations Security Council, which stipulate full Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Arab Golan and Lebanese territory.

The United Arab Emirates also vehemently condemns the continuing Israeli aerial and land attacks on the Gaza Strip and Palestinian towns and villages elsewhere as systematic and deliberate aggression of daily increasing ferocity against the Palestinian people struggling for the restoration of its legitimate rights, amid the silence of the international community, which stands by and does not differentiate between the offending party and the victim. The Israeli occupation forces’ reoccupation of areas in the Gaza Strip and their tripartite division of those areas reveal the true nature of Ariel Sharon’s extremist Government and its wish to expand, to consolidate the occupation and to demolish the entire peace process.

We in the United Arab Emirates reaffirm our full solidarity with the Palestinian people in its endeavour to attain its national rights, including the establishment of its independent State on the soil of its homeland, Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital. We also call upon the international community to intervene immediately to provide protection to this people, which has been exposed to slaughter, destruction and ferocious aggression for more than seven months at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces.

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