مجموعة ١٧٠/٣٠ "مسألة ملكية جزيرتي البيّنة." [و‎‎١‎٢‎٨] (٢٥٩/٢٥٨)

P.Z.2904/38.
COPY
(fi 2288/413/91)
There are two points on which I should like to say
something, the first concerns the Hawar groups of islands.
The position here is as I understand it, that these islands
probably belong to the Sheikh of Bahrein, but may conceivably
belong to the Sheikh of Qatar or even to Ibn Saud. The
company wish to secure the rights over these islands by this
concession on the assumption that they belong to the Sheikh
of Bahrein. If they belong to the Sheikh of Qatar they have
already got rights over them under their agreement with Qatar
and if they should turn out to belong to Ibn Saud they realise
that neither this proposed agreement nor the agreement with
Qatar will give them any rights there and that they are not
getting any guarantees by H.M.G. that a claim by Ibn Saud will
not be recognised by them. This being the position, it seems
to me to be better to word the "Secondly" in Article 1 of the
draft concession as follows: "The whole of that portion of
the Sheikh*s dominions (leased area No. 2) including all
islands, reefs, shoals and waters belonging to the Sheikh
within the following boundary limits " The boundary
limits which are defined by geographical co-ordinates clearly
go round the Hawar groups of islands and therefore if they
belong to the Sheikh the concession covers them. On the
other band, the fact that they are not mentioned in this way
by name avoids the difficult that the concession definitely
contains a statement that the islands do belong to the Sheikh
of Bahrein. This way of treating the matter seems to me to
be more appropriate in view of the circumstances indicated
above.
Then/