Page 315 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

IRAQI CLAIM TO KUWAIT 253
evidence the position is that the Ottoman Empire had never acquired
a right of sovereignty over Kuwait, which was neither occupied nor
conquered by the Turks. And since the allegation that ‘Kuwait formed
an integral part of the Ottoman Empire’ has no historical or legal basis,
it is, therefore, right to say that Ottoman Turkey had established no
legal title to Kuwait whatsoever.1 However, unlike Turkish sover­
eignty over Kuwait, which was non-existent, Turkish suzerainty over
Kuwait in the past could not be easily dismissed. It seems undeniable
that some vague form of Turkish suzerainty had existed in Kuwait
during the last half of the nineteenth century, and, probably, during
the first decade of the present century.2 There is evidence to show
that the rulers of Kuwait continued to accept the title of Qaim Maqam
until 1896. When in that year Shaikh Mubarak Al-Sabah made him­
self the new ruler of Kuwait, the Turkish Government hastened to
appoint him a Qaim Maqam, but he declined to accept the title. He
also refused to accept a Turkish quarantine officer, and in May 1899,
only four months after his conclusion of the 1899 Agreement with
Britain, he imposed a customs duty of 5 per cent on Turkish goods.3
Regarding the British Government, it had never attempted to dispute
the assertion of Turkish suzerainty over Kuwait. This explains the
reason for its conclusion of the 1899 Agreement with Shaikh Mubarak
secretly and without the knowledge of the Turks.4 Evidence of British
recognition of Turkish suzerainty over Kuwait before the First World
War can be found in the abortive Anglo-Turkish Convention of 1913,
which formed the basis of Turkish recognition of the independent
status of Kuwait.5 Having now established that Kuwait was virtually
a Turkish vassal enjoying a considerable measure of autonomy, the
Kuwait was understood on maps as part of the Ottoman Empire’. As regards the
title of Qaim Maqam, conferred upon the Ruler of Kuwait, the Kuwaiti Govern­
ment argued that it was no more than an ‘honorific title’ which did not, in any
way, affect the separate entity of the Ruler.
1 According to historical sources, the Shaikhs of Kuwait had ‘owned no alle­
giance to the Turkish Sultans'. However, there is evidence that the Turkish Sultans
had exercised a loose system of ‘tutelage’ over Kuwait during the nineteenth
century. For Turkey’s relationship with Kuwait, see the following: Lorimer, pp.
1008-12; United Kingdom, Admiralty, /( Handbook on Arabia, I (1920), p. 29;
United Kingdom, Foreign Office, Peace Handbook: Turkey and Asia (1920), p. 15;
Grohmann, Adolf, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, II (Part 2) (1927), pp. 1172-5.
Hewins, Ralph, op. cit., pp. 91-182.
2 Aitchison, pp. 202-3; Grohmann, op. cit., pp. 1172-5; Hewins, op. cit., p. 182.
And see Longrigg, S. H., ‘Iraq’s Claim to Kuwait’, Royal Central Asian Journal,
48 (1961), pp. 309-11.
3 Ibid. 4 See above, Chapter 5.
6 In the Convention of 1913, the territory of Kuwait, as delimited in Articles 5
and 7, was recognised as ‘an autonomous kaza of the Ottoman Empire'. And
Turkey recognised the 1899 Agreement between Kuwait and Britain as well as the
autonomous status of the Shaikh. See Hurewitz, I, pp. 270-2. And see Grohmann,
op. cit., pp. 1172-5.