The dawn of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the twenties of the last century, which was melting into the comprehensive Islamic robe that the Ottoman Empire had woven over centuries. The most prominent of these rebellious tendencies against Islamic unity was the Najd Front, which fought on all fronts to seize control. It invaded Mecca in the south, Oman in the east, and Kuwait in the north. One of its fiercest battles took place in the north, and ended with the signing of the Uqair Treaty. The border dispute between Kuwait and Riyadh began as one of the effects of World War I, and the armed conflict between Kuwait and Riyadh led to the outbreak of battles between the two parties. The conflict ended with the signing of the Uqair Treaty in 1922. After that war, Riyadh imposed an economic blockade on Kuwait by closing the border between Najd, which was the center of Al Saud power at the time, and the goal of these pressures was its attempt to annex as much of Kuwaiti territory as possible. The Uqair Conference in 1922, in the presence of representatives of Britain and the House of Saud, and without Kuwait’s invitation, established Kuwait’s borders with Najd. At that time, Riyadh asked Sir Percy Cox, the British High Commissioner, to grant it two-thirds of the Kuwaiti lands, and because of Uqair, Kuwait lost more than half of its lands, and on top of that it suffered an economic blockade after this conference, and the Saudi raids continued at varying intervals.
Uqair Treaty
The Uqair Treaty or the Uqair Conference is a border treaty signed in Uqair on December 2, 1922 between the Sultanate of Nejd in the presence of the Sultan of Nejd, Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud, Sabih Bey Nashat, Minister of Transport and Works, representing King Faisal I, King of the Kingdom of Iraq, and John Moore, the British Political Agent in Kuwait, representing Kuwait, and Sir Percy Cox played the role of mediator in those meetings. According to the treaty, the borders of the Northern Sultanate of Nejd were demarcated with the Kingdom of Iraq and Kuwait. The treaty is considered an annex to the Uqair Treaty. The discussion focused on demarcating Najd’s borders with Iraq. The two parties began to harden their positions, as Iraq requested that its borders be 12 miles from Riyadh. In return, Ibn Saud requested all the northern Bedouin areas from Aleppo to the Orontes River, and on the right side of the Euphrates to Basra. He also demanded tribal borders instead of fixed borders. Under pressure from Cox, Ibn Saud abandoned his claim to the Dhafeer tribes that live near the Euphrates, but he continued to claim the other tribes. Discussions continued for five days. The Iraqi side wanted a border of no less than 200 miles south of the Euphrates, while Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud wanted the borders to be determined by boundaries in relation to the homes of tribes loyal to each party instead of demarcation by maps. On the sixth day of the meetings, Percy Cox drew the border with a red line on a map that was approved by the three parties, and it was decided based on it to establish two neutral zones, the first between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the second between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Shocking details
During 1923, the British Documents Digitization Project https://www.qdl.qa published a record of documents containing two pages, dating back to June 25, 1935. The language used in it is English, and the original copy is preserved in the British Library, and can be accessed by searching for the title “Private Papers and Records from the India Office. Availability condition: Unlimited availability – Call number: IOR/L/PS/18/B450.” The document says: “Saudi Arabia imposed a blockade for more than ten years on Kuwait, which harmed it economically, and other reports state that it lasted 14 years.” It added: “The reason for this blockade is Saudi Arabia’s desire to impose a customs tax on Kuwait, as it was a pioneering country in trade in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it maintains a low customs tariff.” The document went on to reveal what was going on: “But its neighbors in Saudi Arabia wanted to raise the tariff, and Riyadh claimed that there was difficulty in collecting royalties from the revenues of goods entering Kuwait. It asked Kuwait to collect taxes from the Najd desert by imposing customs on its goods, and insisted that Kuwait make special arrangements for that matter, which Kuwait rejected as a violation of the state’s sovereignty.” The document indicates that Riyadh imposed an almost complete ban on trade between Kuwait and Najd, and strived hard to prevent commercial exchanges from taking place between the tribesmen who were buying their supplies from Kuwait as their traditional market. It indicated that Saudi Arabia sought to justify its blockade of Kuwait by saying that Kuwaiti trade deprives it of significant customs income. Because the residents of the desert buy goods from Kuwait and leave its markets, as Riyadh was the traditional market for the residents of Najd. The document adds: “The real goal was to increase commercial revenues for the benefit of Saudi Arabia and revitalize its commercial outlets. It is also possible that the most evil intentions were to reduce Kuwait’s income for the benefit of Saudi Arabia. It wanted to besiege Kuwait and weaken it economically and did so for many years until Kuwait was brought to its knees.” She drew attention to the fact that the situation worsened due to the imposition of the siege. There were not many alternatives for the residents of Kuwait who entered into a confrontation with Saudi Arabia. The document indicates that Britain pressured Saudi Arabia to accept the Anglo-Ottoman agreement in 1935, and forced Saudi Arabia to sit with the Kuwaitis to end the siege, which reports say continued until 1937.
