A Legal and Historical Glance at Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb Islands

The Islamic Republic of Iran owns and administers several valuable and strategic islands such as Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunbs in the Strait of Hormuz and at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz is an L-Shaped narrow waterway which connects the semi-closed sea of the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean and international shipping lanes of the open sea through Makran Sea. Owing to its particularly strategic status, this strait is considered the artery of the economic life of the West and Japan in the Far East. The Strait of Hormuz is about 185 km long and cuts through the extension of the mountains in the south of Iran to the Musandan Peninsula. It is a geologicaldepression bordered by Iran in the north and by the Musandan Peninsula in Oman in the south.