Geography of Kuwait - Boundaries

Boundaries

Shaped roughly like a triangle, Kuwait borders the Persian Gulf to the east, with 195 kilometers of coast. Kuwait includes, within its territory, nine islands in the Persian Gulf, two of which, Bubiyan (the largest) and Warbah, are largely uninhabited but strategically important. The island of Faylakah, at the mouth of Kuwait Bay, is also largely uninhabited as people did not return to their homes after the Iraqi invasion. It is believed to be the outermost point of the ancient civilization of Dilmun, which was centered in what is present-day Bahrain. Faylakah is the site of an ancient Greek temple built by the forces of Alexander the Great. Kuwait's most prominent geographic feature is Kuwait Bay, which indents the shoreline for about forty kilometers, providing natural protection for the port of Kuwait and accounting for nearly onehalf the state's shoreline.

To the south and west, Kuwait shares a long border of 250 kilometers with Saudi Arabia. The boundary between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia was set by the Treaty of Al Uqayr in 1922, which also established the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia neutral zone of 5,700 square kilometers. In 1966 Kuwait and Saudi Arabia agreed to divide the Neutral Zone; the partitioning agreement making each country responsible for administration in its portion was signed in December 1969. The resources in the area, since known as the Divided Zone, are not affected by the agreement, and the oil from onshore and offshore fields continues to be shared equally between the two countries.

The third side of the triangle is the 240 kilometers of historically contested border to the north and west that Kuwait shares with Iraq. Although the Iraqi government, which had first asserted a claim to rule Kuwait in 1938, recognized the borders with Kuwait in 1963 (based on agreements made earlier in the century), it continued to press Kuwait for control over Bubiyan and Warbah islands through the 1960s and 1970s. In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and, shortly thereafter, formally incorporated the entire country into Iraq. Under United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 687, after the restoration of Kuwaiti sovereignty in 1991, a UN commission undertook formal demarcation of the borders on the basis of those agreed to in 1963. The boundary was demarcated in 1992, but Iraq refuses to accept the commission's findings.

Recent events from 2008 to the present day have seen the positive advancement of maritime border relations with Iraq with the development of the Khawr Abd Allah (KAA) Protocols. The non-legally binding KAA Protocols were developed and mediated between the heads of the Kuwaiti and Iraqi navies by Major David Hammond Royal Marines, the British naval lawyer and legal advisor to Combined Task Force 158. This included the production of the KAA Interoperability Admiralty Chart by Major Hammond and which was subsequently distributed to both countries, having been produced by the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office. On November 11, 2008, the KAA Protocols were historically signed at Kuwait Naval Base having been verbally agreed onboard HMS Chatham (F87) on 8 May 2008. The signing meeting saw the first formal meeting of the heads of respective navies since before the 1991 Gulf War. Subsequently, the success of the non-legally binding protocols was reported to the US Congress on January 9, 2009 in the Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq Report.