Page 80 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The Retreat from the Gulf 77

as the other Trucial Shaikhdoms, had been informed in February 1966 that
Britain intended to uphold her obligations respecting the frontier, and as late as
August 1969 the Foreign Office had stated that it still regarded the Riyad Line

as the frontier.
The decision to leave the Gulf at the end of 1971 brought the frontier
question into sharper focus. With the formation of the Union of Arab Emirates,
Abu Dhabi’s frontier with Saudi Arabia would, in effect, become the federa­
tion’s frontier. At the same time, however, Britain’s withdrawal meant the
dismantling of the trucial system and the treaty structure. Without the treaty

structure Britain had no locus standi to act for the shaikhdoms to determine the
frontier with Saudi Arabia. But the treaty structure was still standing in May
1970, and Britain therefore had both the right and the duty to act for Abu
Dhabi over the new Saudi frontier claim. If she failed in this obligation, then
she would herself undermine the treaty structure and the trucial system, and
along with them the legal basis of her own position in the Gulf. Whichever way

one looked at it, Britain was under an obligation to retreat from the Gulf in
good order, and to ensure that the treaty structure was dismantled in a
reasonable and fitting manner, which involved settling the frontier issue in the
interests of the shaikhdoms. Yet if Britain was to discharge this responsibility
properly, she could not set a time limit to her efforts. This, however, she had
done, and the fact of having done so was to condition the British response to

Faisal’s challenge.
Word of what had passed at Riyad between Faisal and Zayid reached the
Foreign Office quickly. Evan Luard, the parliamentary under-secretary for
foreign affairs, had been received by Faisal in the same week as Zayid’s visit
had taken place, and hehad been told both of the newfrontier claimand of Faisal’s

determination to compel AD PC - by force, if necessary - to cease
operations in the disputed zone. The response of the Foreign Office to the news
was hesitant, a hesitancy which may have been due in part to the impending
general election. On the other hand, the permanent officials had long exercised
more influence over policy in Arabia and the Gulf than had any of their

ministerial superiors; so it is unlikely that they were constrained in their
actions over the next few weeks by any lack of ministerial direction. The issue
was a straightforward one. ADPC was a British-controlled company, operat­
ing under a concessionary agreement with the ruler of Abu Dhabi, the terms of
which had been approved by the British government. The limits of the
company’s concession on the Arabian mainland - leaving to one side those

areas which ADPC had relinquished to other oil companies at intervals during
the previous five years - were the territorial limits of the Abu Dhabi shaikh-
dom. These had been affirmed by the British government in 1955, and
reaffirmed since then, as the Riyad Line. ADPC, therefore, had every reason
to expect that its right to continue its operations on the Zarrara structure, and
in the rest of the concessionary area remaining to it between the Liwa and the