Page 261 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

BRITISH—SAUDI CONTROVERSY OVER BURAIMI 199
The line then extends to various places on
to the scaconst, leaving Niqyan Qatar to Qatar and Khaur al 'Udaid to the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
2. With Abu Dhabi and the other Arab Shaikhdoms on the Arabian
Gulf,
the line begins at a point on the scacoast 25 kilometers from Khaur al-
'Udaid. It then runs to the south and southeast through the territories
known as al-Majann, Sabkhat Matti, and KafTat al-Liwa (Qafa al-Jiwa)
leaving the land of KafTat al-Liwa to the Arab Amirates and the land west
thereof to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The line extends from the limits
of the land of KafTat al-Liwa to the point of intersection of Longitude 56°E.
and Latitude 22°N. It then runs along the 56th meridian to the point of its
intersection with Latitude 19°N. It then runs in a straight line to the point
of intersection of Latitude 17°N. and Longitude 52JE. Thence it runs west
a straight line along the 17th parallel to its intersection with Longitude
46°E. From this point it runs in the same direction until it intersects the
line known as the Violet Line.1
The British Government made a counter-proposal in a Memoran­
dum dated 25 November 1935 which drew a new line, often referred
to as ‘Ryan's Line’ or the ‘Riyadh Line’, as a basis for the definition
of the boundaries. The frontier line laid in this proposal starts from
the
head of Dauhat as-Salwah at a point little to the east of Qasr as-Salwah,
runs in a southeasterly direction, skirting the southern edge of the Sabkhat
Matti, and then turning eastwards along the northern edge of the Rub'al-
Khali as far as latitude 55°E. This line left. . . Kaur al-'Udaid and the
coast eastwards, Liwa, and Buraimi to Abu Dhabi. But it conceded the well
of Banaiyan ... to King Ibn Saud, together with a large section of Rub'al-
Khali.2
The significance of this proposal is that it constituted a departure
from the ‘Blue Line’ of the 1913 Convention which was drawn up
arbitrarily along the 50th meridian.3 This Ryan’s line was unaccept­
able to the Saudi Government on the ground that it did not recognise
its ‘claim cither to Jabal al-Nukhsh, on the western side of the penin­
sula, or to a stretch of seacoast east of Qatar, commencing in the
vicinity of Khaur al-fUdaid’.4

1 Ibid., pp. 405-7. See Map 2.
* British Memorial, I, p. 89. And see for the modification of this line in favour
of Saudi Arabia, ibid., II, Annex D, No. 17. Sec Map 2.
3 Lenczowski, op. cit., p. 143-. For the ‘Blue Line’ provided for by Article 11
of the unratified Convention of 1913, and later incorporated in Article 3 of the
Convention of 1914, see below, pp. 219-20. See Map 2.
4 Saudi Memorial, I, p. 412; ibid., II, Annex 21, H.R.H. Prince Faisal to the
British Minister at Jiddah, 19 December 1937.