Page 171 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

Territorial Claims: Saudi Arabia and Iran 137
found unacceptable by the Saudi Government. In June
this was
1935* therefore, Anglo-Saudi conversations on the frontiers took
place in London; but these resulted in a deadlock. The Saudi
Government claimed most of the Rub‘ al-Khali, Khawr al-Uday
and a large part of Dhufar. In November 1935, Sir Andrew Ryan
presented a modified version of the Green Line, known as Ryan s
Line or the Riyadh Line; by this the British Government allowed
to Saudi Arabia much of the Rub* al-Khali, but would not recognise
its claim to either Jabal Nakhsh, at the western base of the Qatar
peninsula, or Khawr al-‘Udayd, which it regarded as belonging
to Abu Dhabi.49 In March 1937 a Foreign Office delegation led
by George Rcndel, head of the Eastern Department, went to Jeddah
to discuss Khawr al-‘Udayd and Jabal Nakhsh with the Saudi
Foreign Minister, Yusuf Yasin.50 Little came of the talks, but upon
RendcFs return to London the Foreign Office and the India Office
took the matter up between them, and realised that their respective
positions were totally divergent.
The Foreign Office was anxious to arrive at a compromise, since
it was eager to retain the goodwill of Ibn Sa‘ud, as a prominent
Arab leader. On 29 June 1937, at a meeting of the Middle East
Sub-Committee, Sir Reader Bullard, Minister to Saudi Arabia, sug­
gested that the king be allowed to share in any oil profits attained
from Jabal Nakhsh. The India Office was against this form of
compromise, especially after reports had reached London of a recent
survey by the Political Agent in Bahrain, Tom Hickinbotham, on
the inland boundaries of the Trucial States, where the growing
influence of Saudi Arabia was markedly obvious: ‘It now transpires
that all the Trucial Shaikhs have an agreement, probably unwritten
regarding the apprehension and punishment of offenders from Saudi
Arabia and that they have all at one time or another corresponded
officially with the Saudi Arabian authorities.’51 The report was based
on information supplied by the Residency Agent, who stated, ‘As
the Trucial Shaikhs were weak and could not prevent outside raids,
they were compelled by circumstances to complain to the Saudi
Arabian authorities against their subjects and in all cases the punish­
ment was satisfactory and much more than what they would have
inflicted against the offenders.’52 The Residency Agent went on
to say that the shaykhs never risked the anger of the Saudi authorities
by punishing Saudi offenders caught on the Coast, but instead
sent them to Hasa for punishment; offenders on the Coast, by
contrast, rarely ran to Saudi Arabia, for they knew they would
be punished and never be allowed to return.53
Hickinbotham urged a settlement of the boundary question with
Saudi Arabia, especially as he found strong evidence that Ibn
Sa‘ud was extending his influence as far eastwards as Buraimi.