Iraq to Challenge a UN Decree to Retain Strategic Maritime Channel

Shafaq News/ Iraq seeks to regain control over the strategic "Khor Abdallah" maritime route as it prepares to challenge a UN decree before an international court, Minister of Transportation, Razzaq Mohaibes al-Saadawi, revealed on Sunday.

"We have taken a series of measures to protect Iraq's maritime borders and reclaim its sovereignty over the channel in Khor Abdallah, Khor al-Khafji, and Khor Ummayah," he said.

Minister al-Saadawi illuminated the paradox faced by Iraq as it strives to position itself as an international transshipment fulcrum via its strategically located Gulf ports: while Iraq is making substantial financial commitments to enhance it maritime infrastructure and transport sector, threat of incursions into strategic maritime passages by neighboring regional powers continue to exist.

Al-Saadawi noted that the ministry has contacted the foreign ministry to complete the procedures of sending the map of Iraq's maritime territories to the Council of Ministers for approval.

In the process, the Ministry also penned a letter to the legal department of the foreign ministry, requesting a challenge to UN Security Council Resolution 833 of 1993 on Khor Abdallah, due to the "damage inflicted on Iraq, depriving it of its maritime landscape and its historic right to the navigable channel in the estuary."

"Iraq has a national and moral obligation to declare non-recognition of the dispute resolution procedure exercised by the UN Security Council earlier, which resulted in the loss of an important part of Iraq's maritime waters and rights in Khor Abdallah," al-Saadawi said.

The ministry urged Iraq's diplomatic body to finalize the necessary procedures for sending the ratified map of Iraq's maritime areas, approved by the two Cabinet Order Committees (123 and 110) in 2021, to the Council of Ministers for voting and submission to the United Nations as a legal document to protect Iraq's maritime borders.

While maritime boundary negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait are ongoing, al-Saadawi indicated that the latter has been working to support its argument with documents deposited at the United Nations.

"Kuwait had deposited its Emiri Decree No. (317) of 2014 at the UN, declaring its complete sovereignty over Khor Abdallah, part of the exclusive economic zone of the Republic of Iraq."

"It's an key historical error for those prior agreements with countries opposite Iraq's coastlines to not acknowledge Iraq's historical right to the navigable channel in Khor Abdallah."