On Iran, UN Host Country Committee "Remains Seized" Of US Aboutalebi Visa Ban, Cyprus on JPM Chase Bank

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 22 -- After the UN's Host Country Committee met on April 22 about the US denying entry to Iran's nominee for UN Ambassador, the Committee's chair from Cyprus told the press that several members spoke and the committee remains "seized of the matter." 

  Inner City Press asked him how the US had justified its act in light of the Host Country Agreement. Ask the Americans, he said. But they did not speak at the stakeout.

  A member coming out of the meeting, well known to Inner City Press, told it that many countries had spoken in favor of Iran, as well as on "the bank issue" which Inner City Pressfirst covered, here: JPMorgan Chase is closing a number of countries' accounts. On this, the Cypriot chair told Inner City Press to expect a solution soon. Or a resolution?

On the US's visa denial, the UN Secretariat under Ban Ki-moon has remained markedly quiet, even as the UN's own agreement with the US is flaunted. Previously, the UN opined that blocking access to Yassar Arafat violated the agreement, as Inner City Press asked out, how doesn't this? But Ban doesn't want to say it.

In fact, the meeting wasn't even initially listed in the UN Media Alert for April 22. The Free UN Coalition for Accessquestioned why, given the level of interest. At the day's noon briefing, Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said there would be a UNTV stakeout in front of the meeting. (He didn't answer, for the second day in a row, why on Western Sahara the Polisario Front has now been banned from speaking on UNTV, while for example the Turkish Cypriot leader Eroglu spoke on UNTV on April 21).

Representing the US in the April 22 Host Country Committee meeting was Deputy Permanent Representative Rosemary DiCarlo (Permanent Representative Samantha Power was at a Security Council retreat with Ban Ki-moon.)

  Inner City Press has asked why the US under the Host Country Agreement went so far as to do a court filing supporting immunity for Sri Lanka Deputy Permanent Representative Shavendra Silva, whose army unit was portrayed engaged in 2009 war crimes in Ban Ki-moon's own report, but now denies a visa to Aboutalebi, describes as a translator in the 1979 hostage taking. Politics, of course. But we're still waiting for an actual answer. Watch this site.

   

As US Bans Iran Ambassador, Inner City Press Asks UN of 1988 Arafat Ruling, 1953 Document, Precedents: What's Changed?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 11 -- For days the UN spokespeople have resisted saying if the US blocking Iran's nominee to be Ambassador to the UN would violate the UN's own agreement with the US as Host Country. 

  On April 11, when the US said "we have informed the United Nations and the Government of Iran that we will not issue a visa to Mr. Aboutalebi," Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric if the UN's legal opinion in 1988 that the US had a duty to let Yasser Arafat in still applies.Video here.

That is, since the Host Country Agreement hasn't changed, why hasn't the UN simply reiterated its precedential ruling on Arafat? Is the only difference the change in Secretaries General? Or the end of the Cold War and seemingly uni-polar world, or at least uni-polar UN?

Dujarric said that it's that neither the US nor Iran have asked for a ruling. But the US informing the UN of its decision should trigger some statement. Here is the 1988 (and 1953) background:

From the "Statement by the UN Legal Counsel concerning the determination by the Secretary of State of the United States of America on the visa application of Mr. Yasser Arafat, made at the 136th meeting of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country, on 28 November 1988," undocs/org/A/C.6/43/7:

2. [...] As you know, sections 11, 12 and 13 of the Headquarters Agreement provide, inter alia, that invitees of the United Nations shall not be impeded in their access to the Headquarters district, that this applies irrespective of the state of bilateral relations of the host country and that the necessary visas "shall be granted ... as promptly as possible".

10. For the record, I wish to state that the United Nations has not acquiesced in such a practice. It is true that, on certain occasions, the United States has declined to issue visas to representatives of States or to persons invited to the United Nations, and the United Nations has not insisted where the requesting State itself, for reasons of its own, did not pursue the matter. The United Nations legal position regarding the obligation of the host country to grant visas has at all times been perfectly clear to the host country, as was the United Nations position with respect to the so-called security reservation...

12. To sum up, I am of the opinion that the host country was and is under an obligation to grant the visa request

Even further back, document E/2397 of 10 April 1953 explains that:

"Section 21 of the Headquarters Agreement establishes the procedures for handling any such dispute. If the dispute is not settled by negotiation or other agreed mode of settlement, it “shall be referred for final decision to a tribunal of three arbitrators, one to be named by the Secretary-General, one to be named by the Secretary of State of the United States, and the third to be chosen by the two, or, if they should fail to agree upon a third, then by the President of the International Court of Justice.”

So what's different now? Watch this site.