Thalweg line returns to Shatt-al-Arab waterway, agreement 3/1/2014 3:16 PM - BAGHDAD/ Aswat al-Iraq: The long-disputed Thalweg river line between Iraq and Iran returned to life by a new later-to-be-signed agreement between the two sides. In a statement by Iraqi foreign ministry, Minister Hoshiar Zebari held political and technical talks in Teheran last week.The talks concentrated on border agreements and their protocols, particularly 1975 Algiers agreement. The statement added that both sides reached to understandings on Shatt-al-Arab water way through adopting the Thalweg river line principle. The Thalweg principle of international law, whereby a river or some other body of water constitutes an international border, was most notably used in the Middle East in the case of the border between Iraq and Iran. While at one point in history, the Thalweg of the Shatt al-Arab river between the two left the entire river in Iraqi hands, a 1975 treaty moved the Thalweg to the midpoint of the river. Overturning this treaty was one of the motivating factors that led Iraq to attack Iran in 1980. The Iraqi-Iranian border problems dated back for few decades, mostly on the status of Shatt-al-Arab water way that leads to the Arab Gulf. In 1969, Iranian Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi abrogated the 1937 border agreement with Iraq, demanding to adopt the Thalweg river line.In 1972, border skirmishes took place between the two countries, but with Arab mediations, both sides reached to an agreement in 1975, which was called the Algiers Agreement that stipulated that the middle line of Shatt-al-Arab will be the definitive border line between them.Furthermore problems occurred after the down fall of the Shah and the emergence of the Islamic revolution in 1979, where exp-president Saddam Hussein abrogated the Algiers agreement in 17 September, 1980 and regarded Shatt-al-Arab as part of Iraqi internal waters.As a result, war erupted between the two sides that led to one million casualties, which continued for eight bloody years.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 05:52:01 +0000
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