Some suggestions on Iraq-related issues
Offered by the Good Offices Group of Euopean Lawmakers – Geneva
swissbit@solami.com ¦ www.solami.com/UNGA – 5 March 2003 (rev.3)

Turkey’s principled stand on Iraq issues is seen to be widely appreciated - even inside the US administration.  And it is likely to win, both internally and externally, widespread approval and support (including from those European Governments who have been seen standing in the way to Turkish membership in the European Union):

  1. If Turkey facilitated maximum military pressure to obtain full and prompt execution of UN Resolution 1441, notably by way of acceeding to the US request for letting US troops, if necessary, transit through Turkish territory (thereby drawing inspiration from the Jerusalem Peace Agreement of Jaffa - www.solami.com/jaffa - where all war objectives where achieved through negociations, under the credible threat of fully deployed armies, thus enabling and encouraging the adversaries to actually avoid war).

    2.  
  2. If Turkey pro-actively addressed the regional security concerns of its neighbours and allies, notably by encouraging Iraq to take and support political initiatives at the UN in line with art. 77c of the UN Charter, seeking to place the Mosul Vilayet (Northern Iraq: www.solami.com/mvc) under the UN Trusteeship System 1/, with France, Germany and Russia to be invited to share a mandate.

    3.  
  3. If Turkey offered to the UN Blue Helmet troops for a rôle in the Mosul Vilayet alongside troops from other UN countries, thus giving mutually beneficial recognition to the latent but almost universal support among the Mosul Vilayet communities and parties for the Mosul Vilayet Declarations (www.solami.com/a31), including their explicit invitation of 1992 to the Turkish Government (www.solami.com/mandate) which was renewed in 1994 and 2003 (www.solami.com/partypres): "to assist us in every possible way in our efforts to liberate the remaining parts of the Mosul Vilayet from Iraqi occupation, and invite the Governments of France, Great Britain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United States to facilitate the early realization of this liberation with all available means, including the extension of the present no-fly zone to a military interdiction zone down to the 33.5th parallel, thus covering the Mosul Vilayet".

    4.  
  4. If Turkey thus sought to effectively safeguard the minority and property interests and rights not only of its own citizens and Turkomen brethren in the Mosul Vilayet, but also of the Assyrian and Kurdish minorities living there.

    5.  
  5. If Turkey were to initiate at the UN General Assembly a corresponding follow-up to UN General Assembly Resolution 24 (I) of 12 February 1946 2/


NOTES

1/   On June 26, 1945, the United Nations Charter was adopted; according to its Chapter XII, the basic objectives of the International Trusteeship System are (Article 76):

"a. to further international peace and security;
b. to promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive development towards self-government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, and as may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship agreement;
c. to encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion, and to encourage recognition of the interdependence of the peoples of the world; ..."
Article 77 provides for "territories volontarily placed under the system by states responsible for their administration". It specifies:
"2. It will be a matter for subsequent agreement as to which territories in the foregoing categories will be brought under the trusteeship system and upon what terms."
Territories not manifestly covered by this Article 77 may be brought under the UN Trusteeship System by way of other applicable Charter provisions, notably concerning the Security Council or the Statute of the International Court of Justice which is to exercise some functions which were attributed to its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice:
"Article 36
5. Declarations made under Article 36 of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice and which are still in force shall be deemed, as between the parties to the present Statute, to be acceptances of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice for the period which they still have to run and in accordance with their term.
Article 37
Whenever a treaty or convention in force provides for reference of a matter to a tribunal to have been instituted by the League of Nations, or to the Permanent Court of International Justice, the matter shall, as between the parties to the present Statute, be referred to the International Court of Justice."
2/   providing for "full and prompt application of UN General Assembly Resolution 24 (I) of 12 February 1946, notably with regard to the international minority protection and property rights obligations arising from the Declaration of the Kingdom of Iraq of 30 May 1932, as invoked in the "Unity Declaration" of 31 May 1994, and reflected in the Agreement of Geneva of 2 August 1994 by the representatives of the Mosul Vilayet's Arab, Assyrian, Kurdish and Turkomen communities, which explicitly provide for the mutual recognition of the property rights situation at the termination of the British Mandate over Iraq on 3 October 1932 and Iraq's undiminished international obligation to respect these rights" (www.solami.com/UNGA).  As proposed in the memo "Proposed political conditions for parliamentary approval of US/Turkish agreement of February 2003" of 22 February 2003 (www.solami.com/dulger), an interested UN member state might offer a corresponding draft resolution for prompt consideration by the UN General Assembly:
    "Whereas the UN General Assembly, in its Resolution 24 (I), section I, of 12 February 1946 (www.solami.com/UNGA.htm#1946), has declared "that the United Nations is willing, in principle, and subject to the provisions of this resolution and of the Charter of the United Nations, to assume the exercise of certain functions and powers previously entrusted to the League of Nations," and that the "General Assembly will itself examine, or will submit to the appropriate organ of the United Nations, any request from the parties that the United Nations should assume the exercise of functions or powers entrusted to the League of Nations by treaties, international conventions, agreements and other instruments having a political character";
    wheras in relation particularly to the Assyrian, Kurdish and Turkomen inhabitants of the Mosul Vilayet, which was conditionally attached to Iraq in 1926, the Declaration of the Kingdom of Iraq of 30 May 1932 (www.solami.com/a3a.htm#DECLARATION) contains comprehensive minority protection and property rights which still take precedent over any Iraqi "law, regulation or official action now or in the future" and which, as such, "constitute obligations of international concern", are "placed under the guarantee" of the international community, and on which, in the event, the UN Security Council may "take such measures and give such directions as it may deem proper and effective in the circumstances";
    whereas the UN Human Rights Rapporteurs for Iraq in particular have documented numerous cases of grave violations of human rights by the Iraqi regime (www.solami.com/a3b.htm#E/CN.4/1995/NGO/52), including violations of international obligations Iraq incurred under UN Security Council Resolution 688 (1991:  www.solami.com/UNGA.htm#688) and its constitutive Declaration of 30 May 1932,
... requests the UN General Assembly to examine, or to submit to the appropriate organ of the United Nations, the request that the United Nations assume the exercise of functions or powers entrusted to the League of Nations by virtue of the Declaration of the Kingdom of Iraq of 30 May 1932."