Page 214 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The Saudi Arabia-Abu Dhabi Frontier, 1955-77
__o__ 0___O___ o __ /)<• 1aih> frontier (Ri\ad I me). Frontier claimed b\ Saudi Arabia.
October 1955 Mas 1970
. Abu Dhabi Oman frontier. . Frontier reputedly agreed between
May 1959 Fcbruan 1963 Saudi /Xrabia and Abu Dhabi. 1977
--------------------------------- Frontier proposed by Saudi Arabia.
April 1967
C 10 50
— — . . — Qatar Abu Dhabi maritime frontier. .1___; —i .a___i miles
March 1969 10 80km

was building a new highway to link Abu Dhabi with Qatar reached the vicinity
of Sila, on the coast just west of the Sabkhat Matti. Here its operations were

halted by a Saudi police detachment which claimed that the company was
working in Saudi territory. The upshot was that fresh discussions on the
frontier were begun in the winter of 1976-7, this time with the participation of
the Omanis who had complained about their exclusion from the earlier negotia­
tions. A new agreement was apparently reached in the early summer of 1977,

although again its details were not disclosed. However, an oil-concessions map
put out by the UAE ministry of petroleum in June 1977, without any accom­
panying statement or explanation, depicted the Abu Dhabi-Saudi Arabia
frontier as starting on the coast some twenty miles west of the Sabkhat Matti
and following a course very similar to that of the original Saudi claim (the Red
Line) of 1935 (see map above and pp. 62-3). A month after the issuing of the
map the Saudi ambassador in Abu Dhabi was reported to have handed over a
cheque for the sum of $32.8 million - for what purpose is unknown, unless it