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Iraqi claim to sovereignty over Kuwait

Background
On 19 June 1961 the late Amir of Kuwait, Shaikh 'Abel Allah al-Salim
Al-Sabah, and the then British Political Resident in the Arabian Gulf,
Sir William Luce, signed in Kuwait an Exchange of Notes1 by virtue
of which the Agreement of 1899 was terminated and Kuwait was
recognised by the British Government as a sovereign independent
State. Following the signing of this new treaty, the Government of
Kuwait formally applied on 22 June for the membership of the Arab
League. But on 25 June, General rAbd al-Karim Qasim, then President
of the Iraqi Republic, laid a claim to Kuwait as ‘an integral part of
Iraq’.2 This claim was reiterated on 26 June in a formal statement,
issued by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, which formulated the legal
grounds for the Iraqi claim as follows:
Foreign powers including the British Government itself recognised the
sovereignty of the Ottoman State over Kuwait. The Ottoman Sultan used
to appoint the Shaikh of Kuwait by a decree conferring on him the title of
Qaim Maqam and making of him a representative of the Governor of
Basrah in Kuwait. Thus, the Shaikhs of Kuwait continued to derive their
administrative powers from the Ottoman authorities in Basrah and affirm
their allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan until 1914.3
The statement went on to say that the ‘secret Agreement of 1899',
concluded with the then Ruler of Kuwait, Shaikh Mubarak, was
invalid because it was made in defiance of the authority of the Otto­
man Sultan. As regards the treaty of 1961, which terminated the 1899
Agreement, the statement continued, it was equally invalid, because
it aimed ‘under the new cloak of nominal independence ... to main­
tain imperialist influence and to keep Kuwait separated from Iraq'.4
The Kuwaiti Government reacted swiftly to the Iraqi claim by
issuing a statement on the following day in which it repudiated the
Iraqi claim which it regarded as untenable. The Kuwaiti statement
said that Kuwait was never subjected to Turkish sovereignty and that
‘the title of Qaim Maqam, . . . was never used in Kuwait and never
influenced the course of life or the independence of Kuwait from the
1 U.K.T.S. No. 1 (1961), Cmnd. 1409, See Appendix XI.
2 The Times, 23,26 June 1961. _ f r, .
3 The Republic of Iraq (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), The Truth About Kuwait,
July (1961), p. 24.
4 Ibid., pp. 24-5.
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