IOR/L/PS/12/2879

This file is a continuation of IOR/L/PS/12/2878, and contains papers regarding the alleged smuggling of goods from Kuwait to Iraq, and attempts to broker an agreement between the Shaikh of Kuwait (Shaikh Aḥmad al-Jābir Āl Ṣabāḥ) and the Government of Iraq with regards to the prevention of smuggling and the establishment of effective frontier controls. It consists of correspondence between the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, the Political Agent at Kuwait, and HM High Commissioner (and later Ambassador) at Baghdad, as well as communications received from Al Sabah and representatives of the Government of Iraq.

The bulk of the correspondence concerns efforts by HM Ambassador at Iraq, the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, and the Political Agent at Kuwait, to broker an agreement between the two parties. This included discussion of Iraqi proposals to assume control of Kuwaiti customs, to instigate joint border-controls and a manifest system for goods transported by land or sea, or to impose Kuwaiti tariffs on imports at the same rate as Iraqi tariffs. Later correspondence discusses the negotiation of an anti-smuggling agreement between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and a proposed customs union between Kuwait and Iraq. The correspondence makes reference to on-going negotiations over the Kuwait-Iraq border, and the Iraqi date gardens owned by the Shaikh of Kuwait.

There is a small quantity of correspondence from 1941 between the Government of Iraq, the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, and the Ottoman Bank at Baghdad, regarding currency smuggling, money laundering, and the purchase of Indian rupees.

The file includes dividers which give lists of correspondence references contained in the file by year. These are placed at the end of the correspondence (folios 2-3).