Page 163 - PERSIAN 9 1941_1947

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VI. FOREIGN INTERESTS.

(a) Saudi Arabia. Relations with Saudi Arabia have been
very friendly and the final negotiations for the agreements of
Friendship and Neighbourly Relations, Extradition, and Trade
between Kuwait and that country were completed by the end of

March 1942 and the documents were signed in Jedda on the 20th
of April,
The Political Agent visited Riyadh in May and was most
cordially received by His Majesty King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud.
(D) Iraq. There has been no improvement in relations with

Iraq., but at the same time there has been no deterioration and
at present the position is vastly better than it was two years
ago. Incursions by Iraqi Police Patrol cars into Kuwait terri­

tory have annoyed the Ruler, and very rightly so, and the
action in September of the Iraq Government in forbidding the
export of the Ruler’s own dates from the j'ao gardens to Kuwait
did nothing to improve the relations between the Governments of
the two countries.

The agreement in December of the Iraq Government to permit
the Ruler to export 6,000 maunds of dates for consumption in
Kuwait though it enhanced our own prestige with His Highness did
not incline him to view the actions of the Iraq Government with

a more favourable eye as he rightly considered that the concessioi
was due to pressure by our Embassy in Baghdad and was not a
gesture of goodwill from one Muslim State to another.
VII. DATE GARDENS.

The date gardens case continues its dreary way through the
Law Courts of Iraq without making any ostensible progress towards
a conclusion in favour of or adverse to the interests of the

Ruler. There are in fact three main cases two before the Law
Courts and one before the President of the 10th Land Settlement
Board, those before the Law courts are appeals in the Bashiyah
and Faddaghiyah cases and that before the Lafcd Settlement Board

is the Fao estate.
(a) .The Bashiyah is the least satisfactory as only 36 out of