Coll 6/67(6) 'Boundaries of South-Eastern Arabia and Qatar: Trucial Coast Oil Concessions' [‎179r] (364/402)

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CONFIDENTIAL.
(15996)
[E 2203/2203/25]
.No. •»
6^ , ■
THE SOUTH-EASTERN frontiers OF SAIim ARABIA. '
[With Maps.]
Saudi Arabian GovernmeiU^bo 6 ]] H ' S IVla ^T ty ' S - tioverilment and the
date back to the years 1913 14 tV° frontlers of Saud i Arabia
Ottoman Empire (which was regarded as ;?? ?? uth T t astel ? bound ai’ies of the
and the Yemen) were fixed fv mov1s, UdU I g ^asa, Nejd, the Hejaz, Asir
Conventions of the 29th Julv "lQ?‘t S1 ^ n ® ei ^ b <] dl ed in, the Angio-Turkish
boundaries were the so-called Blue and Vi nl f r ^pfA- 1914: ' ^ le a S reed
a point on the PersiL Gulf onnositl A hn ? s - , Th f Biue llne Parted from
South of the Bahrein archinelawl fnd Zakh p Sland ( whlcl1 lies to the
latitude in the middle of the^Ruh-i .,1 kv, r™ tt 6 ^ the 20tl:i Parallel of
an angle of 45° ” frl a Vmlet hue ran north-east “ at
Aden to the i.i.ivo f - C 116 Pakmat-ash-Sh ab, about 75 miles north of
Lakmat ash Sh p ab Ls .,7 fhT^'T ° f th f BIue llne and the 20th parallel
Protectorate and Ottoman territory tah dotnln ke ^71903^1905,^^d
confirmed m the Convention of t/e 9th Ma7h 19Tl" The testern end if tins
frontmr meets the sea at the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb opposite Pernf Island
,-n hs , two Anglo-Turkish Conventions were signed (and that of 1914
ratmed) subsequent to the eviction of the Ottoman garrisons by Ibn Saud from
then kst noW m the Sanjak of Nejd in May 1913 (he was then a tribal chieftain
tff i' ” f J ' ti° W ti 11! ] eld ' '' Arabia). Their terms were not communicated at
the time to Ibn Saud or to any other third party. Meanwhile, in May 1914.
Ibn Sana himself concluded a treaty with the Ottoman Government, by which he
was accorded the title of Vali of Nejd in return for an acknowledgment that he
was an Ottoman subject and the servant of the Ottoman Government. No
mention was made in the Conventions of the sovereignty of the territory to the
east and south of the Blue and Violet lines, except that the Blue line was stated
to separate the Ottoman Sanjak of Nejd from the territory of El Katr (Qatar).
But it was clearly territory in which His Majesty’s Government were thereafter
free, so far as the Ottoman Empire was concerned, to extend their influence and
authority.
3. Ihe frontier question, which had, in its larger issues, lain dormant since e. 279 / 279 /
1914, was raised indirectly in November 1922, when Sir Percy Cox, the High 91 (1934).
Commissioner in Mesopotamia, met Ibn Saud at Ojair in order to induce him to
ratify the Treaty of Mohammerah of the 5th May, 1922, regulating frontier and
other questions between Iraq and Nejd. The particular point involved was the
boundaries of Qatar. Sir Percy had had no intention of entering upon a
discussion of these boundaries, but he discovered that Ibn Saud proposed to grant
to a body called the Eastern and General Syndicate a concession over an area
including the whole of the Hasa Province of Nejd and the Qatar peninsula. The
south-western and southern boundaries of this area were (according to a map
produced at the meeting) to be a line drawn down the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Faruk as far as
Djau Dukhan (about latitude 24° North by longitude 49° East and not to be
confused with Jebel Dukhan in the Qatar peninsula) and from there eastward to
(9 The legal aspects of this question, and the policy of His Majesty’s Government in regard
to it, are discussed in a separate memorandum entitled “Ibn Sand’s Claims in respect of the
South-Eastern Frontiers of Saudi Arabia.” E 2203/2203/25 ; June 30, 1940 ; Confidential
Number 15997. The present note is intended only as a summary of the history of the dispute
for purposes of future reference.
( 2 ) “ The Growth of the Aden Protectorate ” and “ The Frontiers of the Aden Protectorate ” :
Eastern Affairs (Arabia) Part XLIV, Nos. 8 and 13.
11306—1 [22284—1] b