IOR/R/15/1/708

The file concerns the question of whether Kuwait Bay (also referrred to in the papers as Koweit Bay) was an historic bay (or territorial inlet) [an area of water over which a coastal state has asserted soverignty over a long period of time, and with the acquiescence of other nations], and the precise extent of Kuwait's territorial waters. The issue arose from an enquiry raised with the India Office by the Kuwait Oil Company in 1940 about how to settle details of oil concessions, but which had not been investigated fully because of the intervention of World War Two. The file contains correspondence on the subject between the India Office, the Ministry of Fuel and Power, the Admiralty, the Foreign Office, the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, the Political Agent, Bahrain, and the Political Agent, Kuwait, July 1946 - July 1947 (including reference to the issue of ownership of the seabed under international law for the purposes of extracting oil, and discussion of the ways in which the Sheikh of Kuwait could assert his title to the bay); and resultant correspondence in Arabic and English between the Political Agent, Kuwait (Major Maurice Patrick O'Connor Tandy) and the Ruler of Kuwait (Sheikh Sir Ahmed al Jabir As-Subah) containing a request from the Agency that the Ruler inform the Kuwait Oil Company in writing that the territory of the State of Kuwait included Kuwait Bay, as defined within precise maritime co-ordinates, July 1947.