Page 367 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

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SUBMARINE BOUNDARIES 303
claries has become more complicated recently, due to differences over
the ownership of some offshore islands and reefs that would naturally
affect the construction of the median line of the sea between Bahrain
and Qatar. Apparently, the only large island that forms an obstacle
in the way of reaching a settlement on this matter is Huwar, the
Bahraini ownership of which is disputed by Qatar. From the viewpoint
of Qatar, Huwar, which has for a long time been recognised as be­
longing to Bahrain, is very close to the Qatar peninsula and it thus
should be regarded as part of it. Besides, Qatar also objects to Bahraini
ownership of certain reefs and sand islands; in particular, Qatar
seems to question Bahraini right to attribute territorial seas to such
tiny islands.1
With regard to the offshore boundaries of Qatar and the seven
Trucial States, they still seem to be in dispute. Qatar shares undefined
offshore boundaries with both Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia,2 while
Abu Dhabi shares undefined offshore boundaries with Dubai. The
problem of delimiting the offshore boundaries of Trucial Shaikhdoms
has assumed greater importance recently as a result of the claim which
the Ruler of Abu Dhabi laid to an offshore area lying within the
jurisdiction of neighbouring Dubai, where Continental Oil of Dubai
recently spudded a wildcat well. The strip of territory concerned was
‘apparently allotted to Dubai as a result of a settlement reached in
1965’. The well, ‘located 100 kilometres offshore, in the northwest
corner of Dubai concession area is close to the border of Abu Dhabi
and not far from the median line with Iran’.3

(c) The problem of islands: disputes over the ownership of Halul, Sir
Abu Nuayr, Abu Musa, Tunb and other smaller islands
Disputes over the ownership of offshore islands extending from west
to east in the lower Gulf may be described in the following order:
Abu Dhabi-Qatar dispute over the ownership of Halul and other
smaller islands: Halul, the largest of these islands, lies about 60 miles
1 Information supplied to the author from a private source. See Map 4.
2 See above, p. 263 where reference is made to the conclusion in December 1965
of an agreement defining both the onshore and offshore boundaries of Saudi
Arabia with Qatar. It is reported that Saudi Arabia’s boundaries with Qatar ‘have
not yet been demarcated’. Historically, Saudi Arabia has claimed ‘about 23 miles
of coast line southeast of Qatar, thus separating the latter from . . . Abu Dhabi.
A concession granted by Qatar in 1963 to the Continental Oil Company covers,
among other things, a 337-sq. mile strip in the extreme south of the Shaikhdom
along the Saudi border in the disputed area.’ Sec MEES, No. 6, 10 December
1965; World Petroleum, February 1966, p. 10.
3 According to reports the then Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Shaikh Shakhbut, had
questioned the validity of the boundary agreement he himself reached, through
British mediation, with the Ruler of Abu Dubai. See MEES, No. 32, 10 June 1966;
The Oil and Gas Journal, 13 June 1966.