'File 10/3 V Qatar Oil Concession' [‎185v] (387/527)

4 . This convention was not ratified, but, with the exclusion of Turkey from
the Arabian peninsula, His Majesty’s Government have maintained that the
frontiers of Turkey’s successors, Ibn Saud and the Imam of the Yemen, should
be confined within the limits of the former Ottoman Empire as defined in the
conventions of 1913 and 1914. The question of the extent to which these
conventions could be invoked was examined in 1928, in connexion with the
concession of the Turkish (now Iraq) Petroleum Company. In a Library
memorandum of the 24th January, 1928 [E 330/94/65], it is stated :—
“ It may be objected that, as the convention of the 29th July, I 9 i 3 )
was never ratified, and that, as the ratifications of the convention of the
9 th March, 1914, were not exchanged until the 3rd June, 1914, neither of
these documents can be invoked as evidence of the boundaries of the Ottoman
Empire on the 19th March, 1914.
“ An answer to that, so far as the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. is concerned, would be
that the negotiations of 1913 were instituted in order to provide for the
maintenance of the territorial status quo and for the regularisation of a
condition of affairs which had, in view of His Majesty’s Government, already
existed for many years.
“ The attitude of successive British Governments had been that, prior
to Midhat Pasha’s expedition of 1871, there were on the Arabian coast no
symbols of Turkish authority, no Turkish jurisdiction, effective or ineffective,
south or east of Ojeir.C) There was nothing in the history of Muscat, of
the Trucial Coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. , of Bahrein, or of El Katr, which reflected Ottoman
predominance. On the other hand. Great Britain had repudiated Turkish
claims to sovereignty over Bahrein eighteen times, and had frequently
informed the Porte that the Ottoman claim to sovereignty over El Katr
could not be, and never had been, recognised by Great Britain.
“ The answer as regards the Aden Convention would seem to be that,
although it was not ratified until the 3rd June, 1914, an arrangement was
made for its enforcement pending ratification. Apart from this, however,
for many years the attitude of His Majesty’s Government had been that
they did not acknowledge the title of the Porte to the country lying at or
beyond the mouth of the Red Sea.
‘ ‘ As regards the Hadramaut, all the tribes had long been under British
protection, and the leading sheikhs stipendiaries of the British Government.
“ It is to be noted that, although Koweit was regarded by His Majesty’s
Government as an autonomous Kaza of the Turkish Empire, the Sheikh of
Koweit had undertaken to grant an oil concession in his territory only to a
nominee of the British Government. Koweit may therefore for present
purposes be regarded as outside Turkish territory.”
5. Since the war, with the exception of the frontier between Nejd and
Koweit, which was defined in the Nejd-Koweit Agreement of the 2nd December,
1922, no definition has been reached in agreement with Ibn Saud of the eastern
and south-eastern frontiers of Nejd. Library memorandum of the 17th October,
1927 [E 4330/104/65/1927], dealing with the frontier between Nejd and Qatar,
contains the following paragraphs :—
“ By article 11 of the (unratified) Anglo-Turkish Convention of 1913, the
boundary between El Katr and Nejd was described as a line running from
the extreme end of the gulf opposite the Island of Zakhnuniyah due south
to Ruba-al-Khali (see blue line on map 2 attached to the convention of 1913).
‘' By article 6 of the treaty of the 26th December, 1915, between Great
Britain and the Sultan of Nejd, the latter promised to refrain from all
aggression on or interference with the territories of El Katr.
“ During a visit which Sir Percy Cox, then High Commissioner at
Bagdad, paid to Ibn Saud in November-and December 1922, the question of
the status of El Katr came under notice in connexion with a project for the
grant of an oil concession for a tract of Nejd territory. Sir P. Cox, who
found that in his discussions with the engineer representing the aspirant
concessionnaires Ibn Saud had apparently included the Katr peninsula
within the area for which he was prepared to negotiate a concession, at
once took Ibn Saud to task, reminded him that he had nothing to do with
That is south or east of the line dividing Nejd
and El Katr.
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