evidence: In 1968, Great Britain announced that it would withdraw from the Gulf region in 1971. In 1971 the island of Abu Musa was divided between Iran and the emirate of Sharjah in a memorandum of understanding (MoU). The MoU provided for joint administration on the islands and a division of resources. On November 30, Iran sent military forces to Abu Musa in accordance with the MoU, however Iran also took control of the two nearby Tunb islands. Iran has occupied them ever since. [...] On 24 September 2013 the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, H.E. Abdalla Hamdan Alnaqbi, visited the Peace Palace Library and generously donated a publication entitled: The Three Occupied UAE Islands, The Tunbs and Abu Musa, written by Thomas R. Mattair. Mr. Mattair says Sharjah signed the MoU under duress, therefore making it invalid. "The Shah (of Iran) was on record many times as indicating that if he couldn’t get the islands any other way, he would take the islands by force and he talked about the military assets he had that would enable him to do that", Mattair said. "So the ruler of Sharjah signed the MoU under those circumstances, and he was right to be afraid that Abu Musa would be taken by force, because when his counterpart, the ruler of Ras Al-Khaimah did not sign an agreement with Iran, Iran did use force to take the Tunbs islands as well".