A Study of thePolitical and Historical Claims of the United Arab Emirates and Iran's Argument for its Ownership of the Three Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa Islands

The present paper investigates the claims of UAE and Iran’s argument over the ownership of the three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf: the Greater Tunb, the Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa. The role of the colonial British government in this regard has also been taken into consideration as a secondary factor. At the beginning of the 20th century, the British Empire granted the control of these islands to the EAE, but in 1970 it accepted their return to Iran. Iran’s official standpoint against the claim of UAE negates any claim of this country to the ownership of these three islands based on certain historical documents indicating their permanent belonging to Iran. This study was conducted following the historical and descriptive-analytic methods of research. The derived conclusions, which were obtained through a meticulous analysis of the data collected from historical sources demonstrate that, due to occurrence of some civil wars Constitutional Revolution( in Iran and the weakness of its central government, this country failed to have the necessary reaction against Britain’s profiteering activities at the right time and prevent theircession to the Shaykhs of Sharjah.