The President of Iraq Jalal Talebani has been quoted as questioning the legality of the Algiers Treaty.
First some hurried background.
Under the auspices of the Algerian President Houari Boumedian, the King of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and vice chairman of the revolution command council of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, held two lengthy meetings on the sideline of the March 6, 1975 OPEC meeting in Algeria. The meeting culminated in the declaration of the Algiers Accord and the subsequent signing of the Algiers Treaty on 13 June 1975.
Under the terms of the Treaty parties re-recognized the Shatt al-Arab waterway (Arvand-rud to Iranians) as the natural frontier marker. Specifically, the Thalweg Principle, the deepest point of the channel, was once again recognized as the governing principle in delineation of the border between the two countries. On 18 September 1980, in a televised broadcast Saddam Hussein, by then the President of Iraq, tore up a copy of the Algiers Treaty calling it null and void.
Five days later on 22 September 1980 Iraq launched a full-scale invasion of Iran touching off an eight year long WWI style trench warfare. After million-plus lives lost and devastation of both countries economies number of clandestine meetings, initiated by Iraq, took place. Sirouse Nasseri the personal representative of Hashemi Rafsanjani, the President of the Islamic Republic at that time and Barzan Ebrahim Takriti, the half brother and personal representative of Saddam Hussein met principally in Vienna Austria. About the same time number of personal letters was being exchanged between Saddam Hussein and Hashemi Rafsanjani which were later published by the Islamic Propagation Office in Iran under the title of Documents of the Glory.
Next to the final letter dated 14 August 1990 begins by Saddam Hussein stating: “With this decision of ours everything is clear now and you therefore have acquired all that you wanted and were insisting upon, all that is left is the exchanging of the documents”. In the responding letter Hashemi Rafsanjani states: “Your renewed acceptance of the 1975 Algiers Treaty paves the way for the implementation of the {UN} Resolution 598 and substitution of the current cease fire with a permanent and lasting peace”.
Of the players mentioned above, Saddam Hussein was tried, convicted and executed by the new Iraqi government. So was his half brother and former head of the notorious secret police, Mokhaberat, Barzan Ebrahim Takriti. Sirouse Nasseri who was briefly in the news as the Islamic Republic Nuclear negotiator has apparently fallen out of favor and is facing a number of criminal charges by the Islamic Republic judiciary related to his dealings in oil business and is residing in Vienna. Hashemi Rafsanjani is now simultaneously heading two leading Islamic Republic bodies, the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council.
And now the new president of Iraq is quoted by Al-jazeera network as saying: “This agreement {Algiers Treaty} was between Saddam and the Shah of Iran not between Iran and Iraq. We want good and excellent relations with our Islamic republic neighbor of Iran and we have talked with our brothers Iranians before about it”.
Should that be true, that a President of Iraq has once again unilaterally declared the internationally recognized and binding treaty null and void — moreover, has previous to this occasion talked about its nullification with as he puts it: “we have talked with our brothers Iranians before about it”. Then it would be yet another signal that the current players have not learned a thing from the history that some of them were intimately involved in.
The Islamic Republic needs to take this provocation a lot more serious than it has which has been limited to tepid friendly denunciation statements by low level functionaries. The Iraqi government needs to step back from the abyss which certainly awaits them should they continue with this line of provocations.
The United States too needs to reflect on its infinite lack of knowledge of the local politics and yank the chain of their Iraqi clients. For affirmation, the U.S. needs to review the current history of its involvement in Iraq. Due to manifestly callous, bordering on negligent policies, in short order it has turned a grateful Iraqi populace off who were initially ecstatic about their emancipation.
Being well plugged into the national psyche, the territorial issues are one thing that the Islamic Republic has again and again turned to to help it out of a bind. Should the U.S not publicly affirm the legality of the Accord and distance itself away from Talebani’s odious statement, then the U.S. will once again be played by the wily Islamic Republic. This would be to the detriment of Iranians who alongside Israelis are the most pro-Americans in the region and U.S. can’t afford loosing their affection.
