'File 8/15 Arab Series - 1933-1939' [‎150r] (299/434)

the bedouin tribes of this part of the country have naturally observed as
the frontier the place named in the Uquair agreement and have no under
standing of the inaccuracies of the map on which it was originally worked
out ?
5. The Saudi proposal regarding the Neutral Zone is that it should be
abolished by establishing a frontier line drawn straight from the junction
of the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. al Aujah with the Batin, to Bir Ausab. This proposal is
being examined by the Iraqi Government, hue as at present the only im
portant feature of this territory is the watering places used by the bedouin
tribes of Nejd and Iraq, it does not appear that His Majesty’s Govern
ment need be concerned as to the manner in which it is dealt with by the
two limitrophe governments.
6 . As regards extradition, Mr. Edmonds tells me that he understands
that the Saudi Arab Government are asking for an agreement considerably
w T ider in scope than that signed at Mecca in April 1931.
7. I am sending copies of this despatch to His Majesty’s Minister at
Jedda and to His Majesty’s Consul-General at Beirut.
Letter from the Foreign Office, to H. M.’s Ambassador, Bagdad,
No. E. 981/52/25, dated the 11th March 1936.
\ou may like to have a private word of explanation about our attitude
towards the question of the frontier between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, as
developed in your official despatch No. 89 (17/25/36) of the 17th February.
2 . I should explain in the first place that we have long been familiar with
the discrepancy between the true position of the summit of the Jebel Anaiza
as now surveyed on the ground and the geographical description of it— i.e.,
the approximate intersection of latitude 32 North with longitude 39 East—
given in the Protocol of Uqair—a geographical description which is repro
duced by itself in the Hadda Agreement. In our view there is no doubt what
ever that the true summit of the Jebel Anaiza as now surveyed must be regard
ed as the terminal point of the frontier, since the geographical co-ordinates
are quoted in the protocol of Uqair merely as a supplementary or explanatory,
and not as a substantive, definition. Indeed they are only mentioned as
giving the approximate position.
3 . The point is of considerable importance to us in connexion with
the sector of the Transj ordan-Saudi frontier laid down in the Hadda Agree
ment. The negotiators of that Agreement plotted the frontier on the 1918
edition of the one in a million War Office international map, and, as so
plotted and shown on that map, the frontier is a more or less reasonable
one. It now turns out however that the physical features are in fact
wrongly shown on that map in relation to the geographical coordinates,
with°the result that if the frontier were plotted on the ground or on a
revised map purely in the light of the geographical coordinates quoted in
the Hadda Agreement for purposes of definition, a new and most un
satisfactory frontier in relation to the physical features would result. We
are satisfied here that the Hadda frontier should follow as closely as possible
the line drawn on the 1918 map in relation to the physical features as shown
on that map, and that the geographical coordinates quoted in the Hadda
Agreement should therefore be disregarded where they do not correspond to
that line. Our strongest legal argument in support of this view, however,
is The fact that the North-Eastern terminal of the Transjordan Used in three contexts: the geographical region to the east of the River Jordan (literally ‘across the River Jordan’); a British protectorate (1921-46); an independent political entity (1946-49) now known as Jordan -Saudi
frontier must correspond with the North-Western terminal of the Iraqis
Saudi frontier, and therefore, in view of the phraseology of the Protocol
of IJqair which defines the latter terminal, that it must lie at the true
summit of the Jebel Anaiza and not at the purely geographical point men
tioned in the Hadda Agreement. Once this point is established the rest
of the frontier will follow.