Calls to resolve Algiers Agreement
02/05/2012 16:51
DUHOK, May 2 (AKnews) - Calls to resolve issue of the 1975 Algiers Agreement, which is said to include negative pressures on relations between Iran and Iraq, has been made by the Kurdish Blocs Coalition.
The 1975 Algiers Agreement (or Algiers Accord) was an agreement between Iran and Iraq to settle their border disputes, which lasted until the Iran-Iraq war, pushed by Saddam al-Hussein.
The spokesman for the coalition in the Iraqi Council of Representatives called for the participation of legislative and executive powers as well as political forces to deal with the accord, claiming it has negative aspects that do not encourage the good, neighborly relations between the two countries.
The Kuwaiti newspaper quoted the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, last Sunday during his meeting with Kuwaiti media delegation in Baghdad, as saying that among the priorities that should be resolved is the issue of Kuwait to reach final stability for the two countries.
Next , he said, were the issues inherited from the days of President of the former regime, Saddam Hussein, including the debt issue and the 1975 Algiers Convention. Also, mentioned was the launch of an Arab-Iranian relations because this will help stabilize the region, including the issue of the three UAE islands.
Muayyid al-Tayyen said: "All Kurdish people consider the Algiers Agreement a treachery and betrayal and an agreement between two systems and not between two peoples. It targeted the Kurdish revolution in the first place.
"The Convention should be rejected by the current governments in Tehran and Baghdad because it includes negative aspects that do not encourage the continuation of good-neighborly relations between the two countries."
The Algiers Convention was signed on March 1975 between the Iraqi Vice President of that time, Saddam Hussein, and the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza al-Pahlavi, under the supervision of the then President of Algeria, Houari al-Boumedienne.
Observers believe that the main reason behind Iraq signing the Convention was to put down the liberation movement of Kurdistan, led by the late Kurdish leader Mustafa al-Barzani.
But Hussein canceled the Convention in 1980 after the fall of the Shah and Islamists came to power, which ignited the Iranian-Iraqi war (1980 , 1988).
"Iraq and Iran must take into consideration the circumstances that led to the conclusion of this Convention, which was neither in favor of the two neighboring peoples nor in the interest of relations between Baghdad and Tehran," said Tayyen.
"Although we are fully aware that such agreements are binding over the signatory parties according to the international law, even if the regulations have changed, but this agreement must be reconsidered because it targeted the Kurdish people.
"This issue belongs to all Iraqi people, and we believe that Maliki does not mean that he is the one who will resolve this issue but the Baghdad government with and all its institutions with the state of Iran.
"All the constitutional institutions of the legislative and executive powers and political forces in the Iraq must work to resolve this file."
By Khudr Khallat
RN/SS/AKnews