Iraqi PM says Khor Abdullah deal organizes navigation

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that Khor Abdullah deal with Kuwait aims to organize maritime activity at a common waterway and it has noting to do with the demarcation of water borders.

The Iraqi-Kuwaiti deal has sparked a political and public outrage in Iraq that mounted to accusing the government of treason, with confused interpretations of UN resolutions regarding navigation rights at the bay. 

On Tuesday, the Iraqi government ordered to proceed with the 2012 agreement with Kuwait to organize maritime activity at Khawr Abdallah bay. It stressed it could not backtrack on the deal without the consent of the Kuwaiti side. 

After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Iraq declined to partake in United Nations-sponsored negotiations to demarcate water borders between the two countries, which prompted a panel formed to address the issue to proceed with its own drawing of borders in 1993, Sputnik agency quoted legal experts as saying. 

The government’s recent decision was an enforcement of a parliament legislation applying that border plan, they added. But the government’s decision was met with outrage among parliamentarians who accused it of giving up Iraqi territory to Kuwait.

Control of the Khor Abdullah waterway is one of several outstanding issues between Iraq and Kuwait remaining from now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s August 1990 invasion of the emirate.

Ali Al Alaak, cabinet secretary-general, told a news conference that ministers approved the deal to regulate navigation in the Khor Abdullah, voicing hope that it would clear the way for talks on other unresolved disputes between Kuwait and Iraq.

The Khor Abdullah waterway serves as Iraq’s entrance to the Gulf, through which the vast majority of its oil exports flow.

In 2011, Baghdad began voicing concern that a Kuwaiti plan for a massive port would strangle its shipping lanes in the narrow waterway, but Kuwait has insisted the port will not affect Iraq.