Escalating Middle East crisis worries Caricom members

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana – The 15-mem­ber Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) group­ing has ex­pressed “se­ri­ous con­cern” over the con­tin­ued hos­til­i­ties in the Mid­dle East, marked by mil­i­tary ac­tion in the Strait of Hor­muz.

“Cari­com is alarmed by the se­vere loss of life, threats to civ­il in­fra­struc­ture, and the in­sta­bil­i­ty in glob­al mar­kets that have re­sult­ed from the on­go­ing con­flict,” the group­ing said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has warned Iran that the “clock is tick­ing” as talks to bring the war to an end have stalled. On Feb­ru­ary 28, the Unit­ed States and Is­rael launched mas­sive air at­tacks against Iran, which has re­spond­ed to the lat­est US pro­pos­al by say­ing that ex­changes with Wash­ing­ton were con­tin­u­ing through Pak­istani me­di­a­tors.

Trump sug­gest­ed last Fri­day that he would ac­cept a 20-year sus­pen­sion by Iran of its nu­clear pro­gramme – a ma­jor stick­ing point be­tween the two coun­tries – in what ap­peared to be con­fir­ma­tion of a shift in po­si­tion away from a de­mand for a to­tal end to it.

In its state­ment, Cari­com said the re­cent de­vel­op­ments in the Mid­dle East have pro­found­ly af­fect­ed mar­itime trans­port through the Strait of Hor­muz, through which the right of tran­sit pas­sage ap­plies un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Law of the Sea (UN­C­LOS). (See page 14)

“The dis­rup­tion of tran­sit pas­sage has con­se­quences which re­ver­ber­ate across the glob­al econ­o­my – through en­er­gy mar­kets, sup­ply chains and in­creased freight costs, there­by lim­it­ing coun­tries’ ac­cess to crit­i­cal sup­plies, and dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ing small im­port-de­pen­dent states,” Cari­com said.

”Cari­com notes that all Mem­ber States of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty are States Par­ties to the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Law of the Sea, and reaf­firms its un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to up­hold­ing the prin­ci­ples of the UN­C­LOS.”

It said that the rights con­ferred by the UN­C­LOS are firm­ly en­trenched in cus­tom­ary in­ter­na­tion­al law, and are bind­ing on all states, re­gard­less of whether they are States Par­ties to UN­C­LOS.

“Cari­com al­so notes that the right of pas­sage un­der the UN­C­LOS should not be con­tin­gent on any li­cence, levy, or au­tho­riza­tion, and bor­der­ing States should not ham­per or sus­pend tran­sit pas­sage,” the re­gion­al body said.

”Cari­com there­fore calls on all con­cerned par­ties to up­hold and re­spect the right of tran­sit pas­sage, com­ply with all oth­er ap­plic­a­ble oblig­a­tions un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, re­store safe and unim­ped­ed tran­sit pas­sage in the Strait of Hor­muz, and en­sure the safe­ty of sea­far­ers and ves­sels. Fur­ther­more, Cari­com urges ces­sa­tion of hos­til­i­ties, and stress­es the ur­gent need for de-es­ca­la­tion and re­straint by all par­ties.”

Cari­com said it will con­tin­ue to close­ly mon­i­tor the de­vel­op­ments in the Mid­dle East and “re­mains stead­fast in its sup­port for diplo­ma­cy to pro­mote sus­tain­able peace in the re­gion and greater sta­bil­i­ty glob­al­ly.” (CMC)