Saudi and Kuwaiti Demands for Iraq to Withdraw Its Maritime Coordinates Amid Domestic Warnings...

Baghdad

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have submitted new protest memoranda to the United Nations, calling on Iraq to withdraw its maritime domain map and deposited lists of maritime coordinates. Both countries argue that Iraq’s map carries serious implications for bilateral relations and infringes upon rights within the shared submerged offshore area.

Meanwhile, public opinion and political forces in Iraq have rejected these pressures, stressing that the maritime coordinates were deposited as a sovereign right in accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). They further warned that any government decision to withdraw the coordinates would effectively amount to relinquishing the Jamal Twaina 1 and Jamal Twaina 2 offshore fields—an outcome that Iraqi political and public circles categorically reject.