Qatar appeals air ban to ICAO

Refers to 1944 agreement on civil aviation

MONTREAL • Gulf aviation officials met on Thursday to discuss the airspace standoff resulting from the Arab world’s biggest powers decision to cut ties with Qatar, prompting Doha to invoke a 1944 international agreement to try to ease the logjam.

Qatar has asked the United Nations aviation agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), to intervene after its Gulf neighbours closed their airspace to Qatar flights, but some sources were skeptical about finding a quick solution.

ICAO, which regulates international air travel under the Chicago Convention, is hosting transport ministers and aviation officials from the Gulf states and Egypt at its headquarters to help resolve the dispute that erupted last week. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing it of support for Islamist militants and Iran. The UAE has also decided to blacklist Qatari individuals and entities.

The Montreal meeting is the first high-level gathering of countries involved in the Gulf crisis; however, it was not clear whether there would be any direct talks.

A member of the Saudi delegation, led by the country’s transport minister, said they would not be meeting directly with the Qatar representatives.

Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker said in a statement Wednesday the closure was “unprecedented and it is in direct contradiction to the convention that guarantees rights to civil overflight.”

“We call upon the International Civil Aviation Organization to declare this an illegal act. We are not a political body, we are an airline, and this blockade has stripped us of the rights which are guaranteed to us,” he said in the statement.

Qatar is expected to meet separately with council members and the ICAO president, according to sources familiar with the meeting. One of the sources said the talks are expected to last for two days.

Qatar is asking the ICAO council to resolve the conflict, using a dispute resolution mechanism under the Chicago Convention, Akbar Al Baker which governs airspace usage and is overseen by the UN agency. ICAO does not impose binding rules, but wields clout through safety and security standards that are usually followed by its 191 member countries.

Article 84 says that if two states cannot resolve a dispute related to the Chicago Convention through negotiation, one can ask the council to settle it. Members involved in the dispute are not allowed to vote on the matter. A council ruling can be appealed to an ad-hoc tribunal.

One of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the private talks, said the airspace dispute would be difficult to resolve because it is a symptom of a larger row between the countries.

ICAO, which was created after the United States invited more than 50 allies to agree to a common air navigation system in 1944, has no policing powers and has to rely on consensus to enforce its will.

ICAO’s decision to intervene in the Gulf airspace dispute is a rare instance of the UN body directly attempting to settle a dispute between states.

In 1971, India closed its airspace to Pakistan in a row over the hijacking of a plane by Kashmir separatists. Pakistan complained to ICAO that its rights had been infringed under both Second World War aviation agreements — the Chicago Convention and the separate International Air Transit Services Agreement, which guarantees transit rights.

The ICAO Council, however, merely encouraged the two sides to settle their differences, according to a history of the agency by Canadian academic David Mackenzie.