Trato y Atención al Cliente

Despite the fact that the Saudis had achieved their objectives through the Treaty of Jeddah, Mr Helaissi, the Saudi Ambassador to Great Britain, and Prince Fahd declined an invitation to join British officials and Shaikh Zayid for dinner on 9 September 1974. Helaissi also “added the sour comment that if this invitation was intended as a ‘celebration’ of the UAE/Saudi border agreement, his view was that this was not something which deserved celebration.”510 _{Mr. Helaissi’s remarks about the Treaty of} Jeddah’s outcome were mainly directed to criticising the Saudi side. Mr. Helaissi’s remarks are significant for several reasons. First, he said, the treaty left the Umm al- Zamul area, which “included important oilfields”,511 on the Abu Dhabi side. Second, the Treaty of Jeddah was largely silent about the Omani border with Abu Dhabi. Zawawi, Oman’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, commenting on the status of Umm al-Zamul to Stoltzfus, US Ambassador to Kuwait, said that “There is oil structure [in] that vicinity being explored both by Abu Dhabi and Oman on their respective sides of border, known

507 _Ibid.,p.222 508 _Ibid.,p.223  

509_{Richard N. Schofield, “Introduction to 1974”, in Arabian Boundaries: New Documents 1966-1975,}

Vol. 15, ed. Richard N. Schofield (Cambridge: Cambridge Archive Editions, 2009), xv    

510_{Foreign Office Minutes by P. R. H. Wright, ‘The Saudi Ambassador’s View on the UAE/Saudi}

Agreement’ 4 September 1974, FCO8/2358 TNA, London, in Arabian Boundaries, vol. 15, ed. Schofield, p.280.

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as Lekhwair on Omani side but another name on western [Abu Dhabi] side of line.”512 That explained Helaissi’s sour comment as to why the Treaty did not deserve celebration. Quite simply the outcome of the Treaty gave the Saudis no rights over any of the oil in the Umm al-Zamul area.

In addition to the status of Umm al-Zamul, the Saudi Ambassador’s complaint about no Omani participation in the negotiations supposedly suggests a focus on the Al- Ain/Buraimi region. Interestingly, the Saudi complaint about Omani participation seems strange, since 1949 Al-Ain/Buraimi had always been an issue between Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. Although Al-Ain/Buraimi was not mentioned in the Treaty, it was understood that the Saudis would drop their claim to Al-Ain Buraimi region in return for cession of areas in the south and west of Abu Dhabi. Going strictly by the actual text of the Treaty, it seems difficult to understand what the UAE had gained.513

If the Saudi Ambassador to Great Britain was the first to suggest Saudi dissatisfaction with the Treaty, by December 1974, signs of Emirati dissatisfaction with the UAE negotiating team had also begun to appear. For example, in a message from Dubai to the Foreign Office, a British official reported a conversation with Mehdi Tajir, the UAE Ambassador in London. According to the British official’s report, Tajir had said:

[it was al-Otaiba’s responsibility] to discuss geographical details with Yamani [Saudi Oil Minister], but he made a nonsense of it. Kicking up a fuss about the areas and in general getting away from the spirit of the agreement. Mehdi told me, on 12 December, that Mana’s demands had so annoyed the Saudis that they had dropped discussion of the subject with him. During his visit, Mehdi had been asked by [Prince] Fahd to smooth things over on the basis of whatever [Zayid] wants we will agree to, as long as we are not made fools of.514

In any event, Tajir’s statements about Otaiba suggest that by December 1974, dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Jeddah existed in the UAE and Mehdi Tajir wanted to blame someone for an unsatisfactory agreement. It is believed that Mehdi Tajir had a

512_{William Alfred Stoltzfus, Embassy of Kuwait, (Kuwait) to (Washington), Secretary of State, Saudi-}

UAE Border Agreement as Seen by Oman, 11 August 1974, 1974KUWAIT03347, Available at www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974KUWAIT03347_b.html. (Accessed 15 June 1974)

513 _{Mr Helaissi’s view about the Treaty of Jeddah represented his own personal opinion, not the views of}

the Saudi Government. This thesis claims that Saudi Arabia gained its aims through the Treaty of Jeddah. See Chapter 7 analysing the Articles of the Jeddah Treaty.

514 _{H. St. J. B. Armitage (Dubai), to T. J. Clark, (Foreign Office), ‘UAE-Saudi Arabia’, 14 December}

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personal grudge against al-Otaiba and Suwaidi; for instance Ivor Lucas thinks that the longstanding rivalry between Abu Dhabi and Dubai may well have been reflected in the prickly relationship between Tajir and al-Otaiba.515 Such feelings may well have extended to their parts in the negotiation process, to relations with the Saudis, and to their reports on the provisions of the Treaty of Jeddah. Overall, residual dissatisfaction was present throughout the negotiation process from 1935 to 1974, and even in the aftermath of the treaty.

6.8 Conclusion

The balance of power in the Gulf region changed considerably as a result of Britain’s military withdrawal from the Gulf on 1 December 1971. This fact had a strong impact on the negotiations between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Initially, it was proposed that Saudi Arabia and Iran would fill the security vacuum created by the British withdrawal; this enabled the Saudi to control the outcomes of the negotiation process. As discussed, Britain’s “disinterested role” was challenged by both the Iranians and the Saudis. In the case of Iran, the British pushed the UAE to establish diplomatic relations with Iran. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the Saudis failed to push Britain to make the UAE accept Saudi Arabia’s terms. Even when the Saudis used pressure tactics against Britain by cancelling the Saudi National Guard contract and the Air Force Scheme, Britain did not act as an active mediator in the negotiations because it did not want to damage its interests with either Saudi Arabia or the UAE.

The chapter concludes that Shaikh Zayid attempted to negotiate in a straightforward manner. Over three years, he attempted to make several counter proposals, all of which were consistently rejected by the Saudis. During 1973-74, in response to an unyielding Saudi control negotiation strategy, Shaikh Zayid offered more territorial concessions such as an area west of Sabkhat al-Mattai that included Khor al-Udaid in the hope that the Saudis would reconsider their position over King Fasial’s proposal. Later in 1974, Shaikh Zayid seems to have given up his ‘compromise to accommodate’ strategy. After the British withdrawal from the Gulf, Saudi Arabia’s political power increased significantly, enough to enable King Faisal to control the negotiation process. The Saudis pursued a controlled negotiation strategy from 4 May 1970 until the signing of the Treaty of Jeddah on 21 August 1974. Their tactics included a “take it or leave it”

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negotiating position, the threat of returning to the Saudi claim of 1949, and a refusal to negotiate. After the British withdrawal, Saudi Arabia also adopted a more aggressive tactic by establishing direct political relations with Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Dubai in attempt to undermine Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia’s tactics and strategy were successful and, at the end of July 1974, the UAE made a deal over King Faisal’s proposals.

This study found that it was hard to follow the development of the UAE-Saudi Arabia secret negotiations held on 29 July 1974, which led to the Treaty of Jeddah in 21 August 1974. This is because the details of these secret negotiations are not available in the British Archives or US reports, and there is therefore no complete picture of the negotiations. The records reveal that the UAE negotiating team516 reported a series of misleading details about the Treaty to the British and the Americans. I note the discrepancies between statements about the Treaty of Jeddah, as reported in the British and American records, and the actual text of the Treaty that was made public in 1995. From what we do know, it seems that some of the UAE representatives did not act responsibly with regard to the Treaty, or did not understand the scope of their assigned duties. There are several questions to ask about the UAE negotiation team. Did they actually understand the details contained in the Treaty of Jeddah? Were they incompetent negotiators? Did the Saudis deceive them by verbally agreeing to terms that were not in the Treaty’s written text?The answers to these questions are important since they might help in identifying the gaps that occurred in the final phase of the negotiation that led to the Treaty of Jeddah.517 _{As stated on page 149, the thesis has not}

been able to answer a few questions and these are among them.

516_{McCarthy (Abu Dhabi,) to (Foreign Office), 31 July 1974, FCO8/2357, TNA, London, in Arabian}

Boundaries, vol. 15, ed. Schofield, p. 189.

517 _{All attempts made by me to interview both Otaiba and Suwaidi failed, due to the sensitivity of their}

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