Saudi Arabia–United Arab Emirates border

Map of the United Arab Emirates showing the pre-1974 boundary; note that by this map the UAE borders Qatar

In 1949, Saudi Arabia under the rule of Ibn Saud and Saudi Aramco had made incursions to the Western Region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, due to the prospect of getting oil. Ibn Saud was also interested in ruling the area of Al Ain and Al Buraimi, located in the Eastern Region of Abu Dhabi on its border with Oman. This led to the Buraimi Dispute.[11] On 31 August 1952, a group of some 80 Saudi Arabian guards, 40 of whom were armed, led by the Saudi Emir of Ras Tanura, Turki bin Abdullah Al Otaishan, crossed Abu Dhabi territory and occupied Hamasa, one of three Omani villages in the oasis, claiming it as part of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.[12]

On 30 July 1954, it was agreed to refer the dispute to an international arbitration tribunal.[13] Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia embarked on a campaign of bribery to obtain declarations of tribal loyalty on which its case was to be based. This campaign even extended to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, brother of Sheikh Shakhbut, the Ruler of Abu Dhabi and at that time the wali of Al Ain. Zayed was approached by the Saudis, first with an offer of 50% of any oil revenues from the area, then a new car and 40,000 Rupees. A third approach offered Zayed 400 million Rupees and finally, he was informed that the Saudi representative, Abdullah Al Qurayshi, wished to present him with three pistols.[14]

In 1955 arbitration proceedings began in Geneva only to collapse when the British arbitrator, Sir Reader Bullard, objected to Saudi Arabian attempts to influence the tribunal and withdrew – one of the two judges to resign,[15] the other being the Belgian President.[16]

Given these breaches of the agreement, the British government decided to unilaterally abrogate the Standstill Agreement and take the oasis on 25 October 1955. On 25 October, the Trucial Oman Levies quickly took the oasis and captured all fifteen of the Saudi contingent under the Saudi Emir Bin Nami, who was shot and lightly wounded.[17] The Saudi force was flown out on an RAF Valetta, which took them to Sharjah and then on to Saudi Arabia by sea. Most of the fighting took place after the surrender of the Saudis, with the Bedouin force of some 200 men putting up a spirited resistance to the Levies.[15] After this incident Britain stated that it would unilaterally use a slightly modified version of the 1935 'Riyadh line' as the border henceforth.

After the declaration of independence of the United Arab Emirates in 1971, Saudi Arabia withheld the recognition of the country and Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan as its President on the basis of territorial disputes with the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and continued to deal with the emirates as individual emirates bypassing the federal union. In 1974, King Faisal was asked by Sheikh Zayed that the UAE was in dire need of cooperation from Saudi Arabia in its recognition of the country and was asked to open the negotiations over the border issue. King Faisal used the tactic of non-recognition as a leverage against the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to make it reach a settlement quickly. King Faisal was already associated with the issue before 1974 as the minister of foreign affairs during the reign of his father King Abdulaziz. He has witnessed the failure of many meetings at which British officials sometimes represented Abu Dhabi. He felt the handling of the Buraimi dispute in which Saudi troops were defeated and forcibly removed was a great insult to the Kingdom and a blow to be avenged. King Faisal told the UAE delegation which visited him in Taif in July 1972 that Saudi Arabia had been humiliated in Buraimi and that it would have to retrieve its rights, vowing that it would not abandon property inherited from fathers and grandfathers. Sheikh Zayed was more eager for a settlement but Saudi Arabia's demand was unrealistic as it claimed the annexation of extensive lands in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi some of which contained a number of oil fields.[18][19]

On 21 August 1974 an agreement was settled between Sheikh Zayed and King Faisal on the demarcation of the frontiers between Emirate of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia immediately declared recognition of the United Arab Emirates, sent its ambassador, and promoted its liaison office in Dubai into a consulate. The step strengthened the United Arab Emirate's position as a union and consolidated Sheikh Zayed's position as President.[18]

Map of the United Arab Emirates showing approximate difference between the Saudi border before and after the 1974 Treaty of Jeddah.

In 1976, Qatar and UAE agreed to establish a highway to link each other, however this was impeded by Saudi Arabia who stated that the construction company was operating on Saudi territory. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia hired a survey team to examine the possibility of building a port at Ras Ghumais located in UAE territory and awarding a contract to a Saudi-Irish company, arguing that the UAE borders were finalized and recognized in 1976 when King Khalid sealed the agreement. The Saudis hence succeeded in gaining 20 miles east of Ras Ghumais in another Treaty in 1977 and gave Sheikh Zayed a cheque for $34.5 million. However, this treaty remained unrecognized internationally.[20] According to author Anthony Cordesman, "the Saudi government forced Abu Dhabi to move its border 20 miles further east on the Gulf coast”[21]

From 1974 until 1980 there was no physical Saudi checkpoints between Qatar and UAE, citizens of both countries moved freely back and forth without interference from the Saudi government until after 1990s. The Saudis did not construct the actual road until after 1990. In June 1990 the direct land road connecting UAE and Qatar was closed for the first time and the Saudis opened a new road connecting Saudi territory with UAE through Al Sila and closed the old road connecting Abu Dhabi to the Qatari border. According to UAE military sources, the Saudi government paid money to Saudi tribes to relocate near Khor Al Udaid and claimed they had been living there for a long time as well as built various military infrastructure near the inlet.[22]

In 2004, Emirati under secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Abdulla Rashid Al Nuaimi told US ambassador Marcelle M. Wahba that the UAE signed the treaty in 1974 was a case of "force majeure". In 2004, the UAE publicly raised the question of the boundary with Saudi Arabia and Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, asked Saudi Arabia for amendments. Saudi Arabia responded that the treaty has been closed in 1974, except for Article 5 which talks about delineating maritime boundaries. UAE government publicly announced the dissatisfaction to allow changes to the Articles of the Jeddah Treaty. The public announcement with the dissatisfaction came a month after UAE's previous president Sheikh Zayed passed away, indicating that the UAE was not satisfied with the way the boundary issue was handled. Sheikh Khalifa raised the issue when he visited Riyadh in December 2004, however no solution occurred. In 2005, there were concerns that the border dispute might flare up again.[23][24] In 2005, Sheikh Khalifa visited Qatar and a causeway project intended to link Doha to Abu Dhabi was announced, frustrating Saudi Arabia and causing them to protest that this causeway was passing through Saudi waters even though the maritime boundaries between the two countries was not delineated.[25] Emirati undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated "We don't want to be separated from the Qataris by a slice of Saudi waters." implying that the causeway project was the only hope for Abu Dhabi to be connected to Qatar. In 2004, UAE and Qatar also jointly signed an agreement for the Dolphin Gas Project, which involves Qatar supplying gas to the UAE and Oman. In July 2006 the Saudi government protested the project, arguing that the pipeline passed through Saudi Arabia’s claimed territorial waters.[25] The UAE publicly reopened the dispute in 2006, claiming some lost territory.[26]

In 1992, the UAE wished to renegotiate the status of the treaty, specially the 20 percent of Zararah that was located in Abu Dhabi’s territory. Saudi Arabia published the contents of the treaty in 1995 publicly for the first time to make it clear that under Article 3 of the treaty, the Shaybah field belonged to Saudi Arabia and there will be no joint development of the oilfield.[30] The UAE oil minister was the only GCC oil minister who did not attend the inauguration of the Shaybah oilfield in March 1999 as a way to indicate the UAE's long standing dissatisfaction with Jeddah Treaty Articles.[31] According to a Saudi source, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed made more than two visits to Saudi Arabia in March and April 2011 with the intention of reaching a settlement regarding the 20 percent of Zararah oilfield that was located in Abu Dhabi territory.[30] On 15 August 2011, an anonymous UAE diplomat stated that the UAE wanted changes to the treaty, mainly to Article 3 that would make changes to allow for the oil sharing between Zararah/Shaybah oil field as Sheikh Zayed had obviously believed in August 1974 that the UAE and Saudi Arabia were agreeing to share the oil, but that this had not been included in the provisions of the Treaty and hence its within UAE's rights to request an amendment to the Treaty.[32]

The UAE also argued against Article 5 of the treaty, which stated that “both parties shall as soon as possible delimit the offshore boundaries between the territory of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the territory of the United Arab Emirates.” According to the UAE, the article cannot be settled due to conflicting parts with the 1969 territorial agreement between Abu Dhabi and Qatar, as well as with the UAE-Qatar Dolphin Pipeline agreement of 2004.[32]

Lastly, the UAE directly disagreed with Article 6 of the treaty, which stipulated that an international company would be required to prepare an official map to reflect the current boundaries between the two countries. The UAE continued to use the older version of the map which did not conform the Treaty of Jeddah, showing Khor al Udaid and the location of the Zararah oilfield as UAE territory as far till 2009.[32] This caused a problem with UAE citizens entering Saudi Arabia in August 2009 who were using their ID cards as the card showed the original map and Emirati citizens who tried to enter Saudi Arabia with their ID cards were turned back at the border.[33]

According to The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, it might be argued that the 1974 agreement is of questionable validity in terms of international law. It has been neither published nor ratified by the UAE Federal National Council, a crucial step to make the agreement binding on the parties. Qatar, which suddenly discovered it no longer had a land border with the UAE, was not even a party to the negotiations.[26]