'File 10/3 III Qatar Oil Concession' [‎154v] (330/470)

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2. Sir Percy Cox said that he had kept no private notes as to what passed at hi*
meeting with Ibn Saud on the occasion in question. Anything he had reported or
recorded on the subject would have been left on record at Baghdad; but to the-
best of his recollection and belief the facts and circumstances were as follows; —
3. The specific object with which, accompanied by Iraq representatives, he
went to meet Ibn Saud at Ojair was to induce him to i<itiJy the ■Mohaminenih,
Agreement of 5th May 1922. Sir Percy proceeded to the rendezvous without
any knowledge that he would there meet Major Holmes or would have occasion
to express any opinion as to the boundaries of the Qatar 1 eninsula; hut
learning from Major Flohnes, and from the map that he produced, that he was
endeavouring to obtain from Ibn Saud a concession for exploiting oil in an area
which included the Qatar Peninsula, he (Sir Percy Cox) naturally informed
Major Holmes—and no doubt Ibn Saud also—that this could not be. If he had
then been asked, as he doubtless must have been, what he considered should
be excluded, as constituting Qatar, Sir Percy would undoubtedly have based his
answer on his own knowledge, as Resident in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. for many years,
namely, that, on the east coast, Qatar's boundary with the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi's,
territory was the head of the Khor-al-'Odaid, and on the west coast the head of Salwa
Bay. This, in Sir Percy's recollection, was the position recognised in the Bushire
Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. and adopted by Lorimer in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. Gazetteer. Sir Percy
probably had the Gazetteer with him, but on the above point he would hardly have
needed to consult it. In any case he is positive that the Anglo-Turkish Blue Line of
1913 was never mentioned, and is of opinion that any view which he expressed
incidentally and ex tempore could not reasonably be regarded as the official
pronouncement of the Hasa-Qatar boundary contemplated in our first treaty with Ibn
Saud (December 1915) in which it figured as one of those to be " hereafter
determined." Moreover, Sir Percy Cox states that he informed both Ibn Saud and
Major Holmes that His Majesty's Government ought to be consulted before any
concession was granted.
4. Sir Percy said that in these circumstances it seemed to him that His Majesty's
Government were entirely free, in so far as the conversations of 1922 were concerned,
to maintain against Ibn Saud the Blue Line of the unratified Anglo-Turkish Convention
of 1913 as the eastern boundary of Nejd.
5. Sir Percy said he was not aware whether either Ibn Saud or the Sheikh of
Qatar had ever advanced a definite claim to the ownership of the Barr-al-Qarah
coastal tract, between Zaklmuniyeh and Salwa, but it seemed to him that if occasion
arose in the future for a compromise it would be a reasonable course to assign to
Ibn Saud, in view of his strong position at Ojair close by, that length of coast line
with its hinterland, up to the Blue Line. This would have the advantage of leaving
no indeterminate area along the sea-coast.
I ndia O ffice, ^ ^
27th February 1934.