Security and Territoriality in the Persian Gulf by Dr Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh

Author:Dr Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh, Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh [Dr Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh, Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781136817243
Google: oUP8AQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-11-05T05:54:38+00:00

The idea of Zubarah, in the Qatar peninsula, being a part of the state of Bahrain, captured Iranian imagination to the extent that once, whilst reporting on the letter of undertakings by Shaikh Ali Al-Khalifah of Bahrain to Colonel Lewis Pelly, British Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (1868), Mohammad Ali, Chief of the Passport Office of the Iranian Ports, suggested (in brackets) – where the said letter speaks of the people of Qatar being subjects of the Shaikh of Bahrain – that:

… (here the government of Iran can capture Qatar as well) …74

The notion of Qatar (Zubarah) being part of the Bahrain of Iranian claims continued for such a long period of time that even in 1956 the Iranian Ministry of Justice asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on behalf of the Bandar Abbas Court of Justice, whether the Emirate of Qatar was also part of Iranian territory or not. In reply to this enquiry the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Iran had no territorial claim on Qatar.75

Qatar and Bahrain Declaring Independence

Almost immediately after the British revoked their special agreements with Bahrain in August 1971 the State of Bahrain declared her independence. This was at least three months before Pax-Britannica was formally withdrawn from the Gulf in December 1971.

Bahrain delimited her continental shelf boundaries with Saudi Arabia in 1958 which was the first agreement of its kind in the Gulf region. Bahrain’s continental shelf boundary with Iran was delimited in 1971 and ratified in 1972; the only other continental shelf boundary to be delimited is that with Qatar which is being prevented by the Hawar, Dibal and Jaradah disputes.

Qatar declared her independence in September 1971. Its only inland boundary was delimited with Saudi Arabia in 1965. This settlement was arrived at after some decades of intense dispute. The dispute principally involved the two important localities of Jabal Nakhsh and Khor al-Udayd. The Saudis endeavoured for many years to secure a corridor of access to the Gulf in the Khor al-Udayd area which was recognised by the British in the nineteenth century as belonging to Abu Dhabi. The Westerners at one time, were allegedly prepared to pay the Shaikh of Abu Dhabi a sum of £25,000 in return for the cession to Saudi Arabia of a strip of territory on the Gulf coast of Khor al-Udayd in the form of lease. ‘The Americans whose interests in the oil deposits of Arabia had grown considerably by then, proposed that the British government actually pay for the sale of the said territory’.76

The Americans once again approached the British for settlement of the disputes in that area. The main stumbling block at this time (1944) was the issue of Jabal Nakhsh. The Saudis had by then lost their interest in Khor al-Udayd mainly owing to the development works continuing extensively at Ras Tanurah, albeit they eventually managed to obtain a corridor of access from Abu Dhabi at Khur al-Udayd in 1974.

Jabal Nakhsh was an important part of Qatar’s Dokhan district where large oil reserves were expected to be found.

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