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310  » hi- af.   STATUS OP Jin: ARABIAN GULF STATES


                 (b) The Offshore lioumhry Agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia
                  initialled on JJ December l(J65l

                  On 13 December 1965 the Government of Saudi Arabia, represented
                  by Shaikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral
                  Resources, and the Government of Iran, represented by Mr Abbas
                 Aram, Minister of Foreign Affairs, initialled an agreement relating to
                 the definition of the ‘boundary line separating the submarine   areas
                 which appertain to Saudi Arabia from the submarine areas which
                  appertain to Iran’. The agreement, which has not yet been signed or
                 ratified, purposely avoids mentioning the ‘Gulf’ under any descrip­
                 tion. Although neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia has yet acceded to the
                 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf of 1958, the boundary
                 agreement generally conforms to the principles adopted in that Con­
                 vention. Accordingly, the preamble to the agreement provides that
                 each party enjoys, in respect of the ‘submarine areas’ in the Gulf, the
                 same ‘sovereign rights' as those to which it is ‘entitled by International
                 Law’. Furthermore, the agreement resolves the long-standing dispute
                 between the two countries over the ownership of the two islands of
                 al-Arabiyah and al-Farisiyah (Farsi) by recognising Saudi sovereignty
                 over the former and Iranian sovereignty over the latter. It also resolves
                 Saudi-lranian dispute over the overlapping of offshore concession
                 areas resulting from the NIOC pre-announcement about the opening
                 of acreage in Iran’s District I in the Gulf.2 Briefly, the provisions of the
                 agreement are as follows:
                   Articles 2 and 3 provide that ‘except in the vicinity of Al-'Arabiyah
                 and Farsi' islands, ‘the boundary line separating the submarine areas
                 which appertain to Saudi Arabia from the submarine areas which
                 appertain to Iran’shall be determined by‘a straight line’drawn between
                 geographical co-ordinates. By Article 3, the ‘lowest low water’ mark
                 along the opposite coasts is recognised as the base point for the
                 drawing of the median line. The islands lying not more than twelve
                 nautical miles from the mainland are included within the division of
                 the boundary line. However, in relation to Kharg island, which lies
                 more  than twelve nautical miles from the Iranian mainland, it is
                 stated that two lines shall be laid out: ‘one equidistant from the
                 coastlines of Saudi Arabia and Iran and the other equidistant from the
                 line of lowest low water on Kharg and the coastline of Saudi Arabia.
                 The boundary line in this area shall be a line equidistant between the

                 conform to Article 10 of the Convention on the Law of the Sea, op. cit. Accord­
                 ingly, an island ‘is a naturally-formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is
                 above water at high-tide’.
                   1 The draft agreement has not been published.
                   2 See above, p. 295
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