Page 181 - Records of Bahrain (7) (ii)_Neat

Bahrain'-Qatar dispute over Zubarah, 1953-1960 571

'7A
108i) BRITISH RESIDENCY,
BAHRAIN.
October 31 t i960.
CONFIDENTIAL

T>A (08>/4
■/c ixy i) V(U/ fo /
I liavo been giving Rome thought to the question of the
Bahrair/Qatar seabed and the Zubarah dispute, Correspondence
on the former rests with your letter BA. 1531/27 of August 3
to the Political Resident and on the latter with George
Middleton* s letter 1081/1 of September 20 to Robert Walmsley.
2. I am more and more convinced that wo shall hever make any.
progress on the seabed as long as Shaikh Salman continues to
nurco his grievance and 3ensc of frustration over Zubarah.
His attitude towards (anything connected with Qatar is completely
poisoned by the Zubaijah issue and I do not consider that we shall
make any headway if we go back again and try to explain to him
the generally agreed (international rules affecting the division
of scabedo. I am sure that directly we 3tart talking about
this subject his reaction will be exactly the same as when we
started talking to hijm about it earlier this year: lie will
maintain his extreme claim to -the 60a between Zubarah and
Bahrain and to the p<jarl beds north of Qatar ( ooe Ted Wiltshire* s
minute enclosed in my letter 1^531/3 of April 19 to Walmsley).
The last time the Political Resident diocussed the subject with
the Ruler was on July 18 when jShaikh Salman went over sill the
old ground about fishing and p.earling rights at great length.
George Middleton triad unsuccessfully to explain that this
was not a matter which could b'c fixed between Bahrain and Her
Majesty's Government) but had |to be internationally acceptable;
and that fishing rights did not necessarily confer seabed rights.
But Middleton did not think apy of this penetrated the Ruler's
mind.

3. Since Middleton went on leave in September I have
deliberately refrained from rcising either the seabed or the
Zubarah issues with the Ruler. When I took the First Lord of
the Admiralty to cal!), on Shaikh Salman at the beginning of
October, we had a liyely discussion about a whole range of
topics including development in Bahrain and at the very ond of
the conversation Shaikh Salman rather naughtily got on to
Zubarah and the seabed saying (that he was waiting for
satisfaction from II.M.G. As we had already stayed much longer
than Lord Carrington's prograiiune would aliow and knowing what
we v/ere in for, I merely told !the Ruler that, as he knew, we
v/e re doing our best to study and to try and solve these very
tricky problems and that I could put the First Lord fully in
the picture without taking any more of His Highness's time.
4® It seems to me that these tv/o problems of the sedbed
and Zubarah are inextricably United and that we can only hope
to make progress on the former if we can give Shaikh Salman
some satisfaction on the latter (you will have seen from
paragraph 2 of Middleton's letter 1531/3 of June 6 that Shaikh
R.A. Beaumont Esq., G.MoG. , 0oB.E • 9 \ /Salman's. • •
Foreign Office,
London, S.W.1.

CONFIDENTIAL