The Border Change Kept Secret For 10 Years
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- For some reason, a border treaty between Iraq and Saudi Arabia was kept secret for 10 years.
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Sources:
- “International Frontier Treaty between the Republic of Iraq and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” United Nations, New York, as available on treaties.un.or...
- Jacobs, Frank. “Put It in Neutral.” The New York Times, May 1, 2012. archive.nytime....
- “Treaty of Muhammarah,” Signed on 05 May, 1922.
- “Uqair Protocol of 1922,” Signed on 02 December, 1922.
Music used:
"Ibn al Noor" by Kevin MacLeod
found at www.incompetech.com
Some are asking how the neutral area was divided. The map at 3:32 was the new border after 1981.
"Straight line?" "Straight line."
they just didn't know where to file the "we have a new border" papers to the UN
Why do you assume that?
@@kozmoo9188 thats something that i would do tbh
Imagine if the officials of both sides just simply forgot to register it, assuming the other already did so anyway.😅
Lazy bureaucrats lol
Probably the most logical explanation
No way. All treaties & agreements in all countries are subject to periodic (prob annual) reviews where new relevant developments are discussed and actions are planned. So a country simply “forgetting” to file an agreement is just not a thing.
Moat of our deals in gulf is between the governments in the region and you will find many cases like this between Saudi Arabia And UAE and Qatar
And here I thought secret border changes couldn't be a thing anymore, this'll be interesting to watch
yes let's ignore isn'treal expanding and erasing Palestine's legal borders.
My first globe was a Christmas present when I was 7 in 1975. It had North and South Vietnam, already out of date.
6:10 There is also technically a neutral zone between Gibraltar and Spain as well. It's actually a really interesting topic because the British decided to build an airport in this neutral zone which upset the Spanish. Definitely something that I think is worth making a video on.
This is why you always fill out your Warranty Registration Card and mail it into the UN when you get a new border.
International lawyer here! They didn't register it because they opposed the concept of the UN having a final say in the borders of middle eastern states--their position was that there was no requirement for UN knowledge to delineate or arbitrate disputes between Muslim nations, and wanted to demonstrate that by cutting the UN out of their negotiations and resolution altogether :)
Neat! I guess that makes some sense as a geopolitical power move
That makes sense considering the Arab states didn’t recognize the UN’s partition of Israel and Palestine.
@@greasher926 Yeah maybe but I made it up
@@cutebabbymanYou lied on the internet?! Simply monstrous, how could you >:(
@@heinzaballoo3278 You know how to pronounce "lawyer", right? "Lie yer ass off" but they're shy and leave off the cussing.
My Secondary School map book for geography class in the 1980's got this too, always mystified me back then because newspapers never mentioned it.
Minor correction: Oman wasn't really a protectorate, their relationship with Britain was more like an unequal alliance. Oman's status as a soveriegn state remained intact, but Britain sort of served as Oman's middleman to the rest of the world.
great video regardless, the Middle East has a lot of curious border anomalies in its history, one you may be interested in looking into is the Buraimi Oasis, which was a condominium between Oman and Abu Dhabi for decades, as well as subject to some claims from Saudi Arabia early on.
how is that different?
Oman was a British protectorate like how it was a Saudi vassal in the early 1800s
I have a map at my home with the occupation zones of Germany from the ‘40s. These kinds of videos are amazing. Keep up the good work!
As a Saudi, I am grateful for this video because I did not know anything about this border dispute!
I do remember it being marked as "disputed territory" on some of your videos about the middle east history, and tbh how could you be disputing over sands that much.
May I introduce you to the Aouzou Strip between Libya and Chad.
No natural resources, yet the two fought so hard and Chad ended up isolated from the Arab League, all for a piece of useless sand!
Some of this sand contains natural resources, and if not, it contains villages and towns or even just small communities of Bedouins, so countries fight over it as a kind of proof of sovereignty. There are good examples of demarcating borders between Arab countries in a peaceful manner, such as the strange Omani-Emirati border, which, despite its strangeness and complexity, the borders were demarcated completely peacefully and did not result in any problems
Love you're content tigerstar
Have you thought about making a follow-up video on the (still) undefined borders between Saudi Arabia and both Yemen and the UAE, as well as the (formerly) undefined border between Saudi Arabia and Oman?
Considering it's worthless desert, I am more surprised that the Omani border was finalized than the other two remaining undecided lol
We Defined our borders in the 200os in Taif, probably minor disputes since you mentioned the UAE
I remember noticing that diamond.
Old maps are always fun to look at, my uncle has an old map that still has Yugoslavia on it - not the one you’re thinking of, but the rump Yugoslavia left after the Yugoslav Wars which was just Serbia and Montenegro
My village is located near to this place. Back in the day, my grandfather and ancestors crossed it by walking to Iraq territory for livestock grazing purposes. Occasionally, we travel further to smuggle food, cigarettes, and USSR rifles.
I was given a new atlas for Christmas in 1986. I remember when I first saw that neutral zone within it! The odd diamond shape stood out to me. Plus, as a lifelong Star Trek fan, the name really resonated! :) I didn't know it had been resolved, though. 9I never did buy an updated atlas.)
Before oil: "Hard borders are useless. A line in the sand works just fine."
After oil: "Err... Hey, remember that hard border idea? Yeah, let's do that."
I’m Saudi and I remember in geography class that diamond-shaped place we see on the maps but we didn’t know what it was.
Hey I have that globe in the beginning 😮
This is the kind of niche geography videos I sign up for!
Now we need a video on the Spanish Neutral Zones too
Can i see more videos about Neutral Zones like the one on Ceuta please?
It's not "Eye rak" it's "eee rak" spelled Iraq
Its uruk
EE-rock
It's EE RAK
Thank you. Pretty basic thing to look up if you're gonna make a six minute video on it.
Yeah my bad. It's hard to un-learn "eye-rak" when you heard it that way for decades lol.
Of course the Romulans could be found all over these neutral zones.
I'm quite sure it wasn't "kept secret." it probably was either too arbitrary for the people living there or that the officials just never realized that they had to through the UN.
morocco Spanish border next video teaser?
Well there goes my chance to create my country there
To be fair it was never Terra Nullius like the Bir Tawil. Plus it was specifically left for the Bédouins to live in and buildings were forbidden
You'd have more luck setting up a new country in the Cypriot DMZ
@@aidenbooksmith2351 Yeah, but Bir Tawil is also in a similar limbo and I doubt either side would recognize a country there as it wouldn't solve their disputes at hand and in fact, it would probably create conflict if either side favored recognizing the other.
if you tried explaining middle east in 3 words, youd miss a lot of context
if you tried explaining middle east in the span of several texts, youd still miss a lot of context
Wow i always assumed the west gave the saudis the bits i remembered like that, as punishment for iraq, but actually it was a deal between the two, good show here.
Didn't even cover the largest Neutral Zone, the one between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire. :(
Did you really end the video without showing the actual map? 😭
Hey
4:50 I thoughht that was belgium 😭
Come on from a guy like you I expected the correct pronunciation of "Iraq"
If Bedouin entered the neutral zone, would they be attacked by the Romulans?
Oh no, wait, wrong Neutral Zone, sorry.
Bad empanada uploaded a video of the Iraq war and then you uploaded This, that's funny
Interesting, but the constant “Eye rack” mispronunciation is irritating.
Hi
One of these days, when somebody tries to neglect a vacant border territory, vagrants should just do the last creation of nations by migrating into these border zones
I will rename it as The Hub
so who got what in the end?
The border they agreed on in the treaty stands to this day.
It's ee-RAHK, not EYE-rack.
🇺🇸
🇵🇸
Saudi arabia🕋🇸🇦🕋🇸🇦
A ‘theory’ as to why the neutral zone was never published: Iraqi Baathism is very ‘blood & soil’ ideologically and were obsessed with the perception of strength at all times and at all costs. Even a suggestion of giving up an inch of Arab nationalist lands is a bad look. And considering the Saudi’s registered the map almost as punishment against the Baathist regime, my theory seems to hold up.
TL;DR - small ego baathists dont wanna admit they gave up even an inch of useless desert.
338
Can you please pronounce Iraq a little more correctly.
Instead of EYE-RACKKKK it's more ir-rahk
and Iran isn't EYE-RAN it's more like ir-rahn.
xv
I have one theory...
ALIENS
Have you heard about border between Iraq and Iran? This border belong between Persian empire and Ottoman Empire from 15 century to beginning in 20 century there are lot of information about changing this border and disputed areas and the most well-know border is SHAAT AL ARAB this disputed area is biggest reason for starting a longest war in 20 century between Iraq and Iran from September 22/ 1980 until August 20/ 1988 this war lost everything including strongest economy of Iraq a lot and including too strongest currency in world when Iran lost just lost half but I don’t care about his bull$&$t just don’t ever ignore my comments ok
Sneaky Brits “de colonization” after WW2 but Kuwait is just a partioned province of Oil Rich Iraq under western corporation’s dominion.
Kuwait is sovereign sheikhdom since 1613 centuries before oil discoveries in region just because it’s small & less populated they had to sign treaty with 🇬🇧 better than being swallowed by its greedy neighbors Kuwait lost big chunks of its land check out older maps
Day 9 of asking for a video on Sarawak (Is anyone getting sick of this? Please let me know if you are).
I am an Iraqi, and this is my first time hearing of this lol
Maybe you are from Iraq and maybe now you live in Europe
@Mr_Sapphire This happened while his country was still an authoritarian regime (which are known to suppress information from their citizens *even* when there is no reason to do so) *and* it happened over 4 *decades* ago. It's perfectly reasonable to suppose that this might not be common knowledge in Iraq.
Idk username looks iraqi
Well since you are behind a bit on the news, allow me to pass a message on from my former President because I don't know if you've heard, but, uh, heh-heh, uhhh Mission Accomplished. You see we were fighting terror, and we won, but the fight on terror is never-ending, so we need to still fight.
@@jeffbenton6183
First, cheers for being reasonable and chill. Have a good one.
For what it's worth, I live relatively close to these border changes. Tribes across the divide share a very distinct accent, costumes, traditions. (You even get to hear about Kuwaitis and Saudis inheriting land in Iraq, and vice versa, lol.).
So I naturally assumed these borders were a contingent imposition by a post-colonial state, rather than some organic extensions of ethnic realities or whatever.
But now, thanks to EmperorTiger, I have some interesting tidbits to share with friends. :)
Speaking of outdated maps in school, in 2008, I got a globe from the school's principal as a gift, and it's from the 1980's, a true relic. In it there is the neutral territory on Kuwait-Saudi Arabia border, but not the other one.
Afaik, Bir Tawil is NOT a neutral zone, but unclaimed land. None of the two nations accepts it's theirs because it would mean they reject any claim to another piece of land that is of a much higher value. Therefore, it's not neutral land. It's Terra Nullius
Yeah there is two different treaties, both giving one side Bir Tawil and the other the Halaib triangle, the Halaib triangle is more valuable than Bir Tawil so both sides only recognise the treaty that gives them the Halaib triangle and Bir Tawil to the other country.
Yeah, big mistake. Neutral zones are explicit areas where two or more nations both agree not to settle and control; it is a closed issue essentially. Terra Nullius is land neither nation _wants_ to own, and usually is not predicated by a formal agreement but arrives from some sort of dispute creating their existence, which is an open issue that would in theory need to be solved.
Bir Tahwil is the most famous region, as deeznoots said. There are also four pockets of Terrae Nullius on the western bank of the Danube River between Serbia and Croatia. Since both nation's borders were defined in very explicit terms in relation to the flow of the Danube River, when that river slowly changed over time it led to both sides disputing certain regions on the Eastern side, and thus consequently ignoring land on the Western bank for a similar reason to Bir Tahwil.
Finally the largest Terra Nullius is Marie Byrd Land in Antarctica, which is the largest piece of unclaimed land in the world and is about the size of Iran or Mongolia. MBL is unclaimed for two reasons: One, it is _incredibly_ remote and hard to reach, even by Antarctica's standards, as there are no nations nearby and directly north of it is Point Nemo, the most isolated point in the Pacific Ocean. Two, international treaties from the UN prevent any nation from making further territorial claims or disputes on Antarctica, as the continent is deemed the "Common Heritage of Mankind" (with the exception to the US and the USSR's successor Russia should either ever feel like making a claim. Had to placate the dominant world powers somehow I guess).
i mean to be fair he does say its not claimed by either country it's rly just a small typographical error
It's also not really UNclaimed. Instead, they both claim it's the other country's.
I have a globe made in the brief period where Germany was reunited but still had 2 capitals which also has the USSR on it.
It is better to solve a territory dispute by negotiation than through war
Like Danzig?
@@SuperValue350I remember hearing something like:
-> If Danzig was made German, the Poles would be angry, but the Germans would be happy.
-> If Danzig was made Polish, the Poles would be happy, but the Germans would be furious.
-> So to stop that, a free city was made. As a result, now both the Germans and Poles were angry!
@@QingChina1 exactly 💯
>"it isbetter to solve territorial disputes through negotiations than war"
>indian pfp
oh you sweet summer child...
@@MugroofAmeen ok now I remember about india,s territorial disputes😅
We still have maps in some Saskatchewan schools that are from the 1970s
and ontario
@@popeo1973 damn i wouldve thought Ontario wouldve had newer maps, are you in north ontario
@@ChanceKearns no south part of Ontario
@@popeo1973 oh
What happened to the Bedouins who crossed the Iraqi-Saudi Arabian border, who the neutral zone was originally made for?
By the 1980s when the netural zone was divided between the two countries, almost all Bedouins have already settled in the cities, towns and small villages. And with the advancement in technology, they became able to extract water from the ground in huge quantities in their area, which made it unnecessary for them to move to different areas to get water and food for their cattle.
Also the government started to give Bedouins free land and zero interest loans via the Real Estate Development Fund (REDF) which helped them settle by making building new houses easy.
@@abdullahibrahim8938 what country did they become citizens of? Did it depend? Which government?
@@holdenennis
Good question
At that time they already have Saudi citizenships so they settled in Saudi Arabia.
It's worth mentioning that those Bedouin tribes are originally from Arabia (not Iraq) and they have an old allegiance is to the royal family of Saudi Arabia.
So , where did those citizenless Bedouins come from ? Are they from these zones?
@@Kamalib05
that's even a better question
Those Bedouins that you are referring to stayed most of their time outside Saudi Arabia and did not show up when the citizenships were distributed by the goverment. So they belong to Saudi tribes and sometime their brothers and cousins have the Saudi citizenship, but them in particular do not have it because they were not interested in getting the Saudi citizenship at that time out of unawareness. And some of them decided to get an Iraqi or Syrian citizenship, anyways those people are recognized to be originally from Arabia therefore they are not considered foreigners and they are given some government papers to help them live in Saudi Arabia but they don't have the Saudi citizenship since they returned to Saudi Arabia from Iraq and Syria later on and especially after the government ended distributing citizenships.
I had the same questions about the Iraqi-Saudi neutral zone when i was a kid in the early 2000s. Thanks!
The 🔞 bots are here too????
Ain't no way
Maybe it was secret because neither side wanted their people to think they had seceded territory.
Wow that makes a ton of sense!
Why didn't I think of that? Damn
This is just shocking
The Neutral Zone was one of the biggest mysteries of my childhood I totally forgot about
Thank you.
I think that they just didnt give a shit about the UN part
Didn’t know this!
Why is there a place in Kuwait called Hawai'i?
Hawaili
Finally a partition that really made sands.
Rare footage of the arab dtstes agreeing on something 3:29
0:10 For me it was much worse, I graduated middle school in 2023 and we STILL had only one globe in my school, which was in our history room and was from the 1980s. Still had Yugoslavia, split up Germany and Yemen, the USSR, and a lot of other old country and city names on it.
They most likely didn’t submit it to the UN for the same reason people in the medieval and early modern periods did, to make an excuse for war. Treatise used to be intentionally vague so in case one nation found themselves stronger than another they could attack them using the vague wording of a treaty as causus belli.
Pretty surprised I never heard about this
would have been cool to show at the end the official border
*SSSH IT'S A SECRET.....*
Thank you. I always wondered why the neutral zone disappeared from the map of the Federation . . . I mean Iraq
Nicolas Maduro and Sadamm Huessein look exactly the same
Imagine if Maduro invades Guyana and gets clapped like Saddam did
@@IzzetSuleimani pretty likley
Only difference is that Maduro is fatter lol
funny thing that I am Iraqi and they did not teach us about this in school
I graduated since 2022 so my memory still fresh
Lybya / Algeria border?
It should be all Saudi, these lands were settled with Britain not Iraq
Aww, you skipped the conclusion: so was their agreement partition across corners as some mapmakers predicted or was it some other wacky random way?
I've always wondered what those tiny blobs of land were. Thanks for covering it.
I remember being fascinated by those neutral zones when I saw them on maps in the 1960s.
I swear I thought i was crazy I always saw it in hoi4
Please talk about the UAE-Saudi Treaty of Jeddah and the Buraimi dispute pls
Tiger I love you and all, but these videos quality hasn’t improved much :( ❤
So funny that I found this video the day my brother noticed it on my Cold War globe
Can you do da 1984 map every year?
Great video!
Hey, when I was in school those maps with the Soviet Union and a divided Germany were NOT outdated! Oh right, I graduated from high school in 1987. Hehehe...
The Iraqi-Saudi Neutral Zone was famously explored and policed by French former naval captain Jean-Luc Picard.
Ayup
So, in your opinion, was this just a wacky authoritarian thing?
Why do Americans say Iran and Iraq so weirdly?
I prefer Persia and Babylonia
Why use the term "dictator" for Saddam Hussein and use "King" for the Saudi Arabian leader? Seems like an unnecessary politicized commentary.
Both leaders are similar in their structure of their rule. Just call Saddam President.
Because King Khalid did not bury his own people in mass graves, and saddam did.
@@HistoryOfRevolutions Saddam buried traitors in mass graves. In any other country in the world, treason is punishable by death. Iraq was the target in a war against 34 nations and those traitors were collaborating with enemies of the state.
Maybe you should look up what Saudi Arabia did in Yemen recently. Way, way worse than what Iraq did in Kuwait. The West just loves glazing Saudi Arabia because they are puppets to them and keep the oil flowing.
You watch a lot of CNN, the Saudi people united their lands with their king and they pledged allegiance to the ruler and swore to obey him. They chose their king and it was not imposed on them. There are thousands of tribes in Saudi Arabia and they were armed like the Al Saud, but in short they chose to follow him And establish their state with him and they are still doing that to this day. They are basically proud of that. They are proud that their ancestors fought alongside the founding king, and every year they take to the streets to celebrate the founding and unification of their country and their founding king, King Abdul Aziz. If you cannot differentiate between absolute monarchy and dictatorship, then this is your problem, so please be educated on history before you throw your nonsense at us.I mean who is the fool who calls a country that chose its own ruler a dictatorship LOL?
@@kozmoo9188Cool story bro, go out in the street and criticize MBS or King Salman and we’ll see what happens.
We all know the current Saudi rulers were originally appointed by the British when they helped them against the Hashemites, and now they are protected by the Americans, who they pay Jizya to.
@@dragon888193ftw cool story bro, but but true history says that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was unified after attempts for 300 years. In 1902, King Abdulaziz saw a golden opportunity for me to regain Riyadh from the rule of Abdulaziz Al-Jalawi. King Abdulaziz, with 100 men, was able to conquer Riyadh and expel Al-Jalawi, after that the tribes began to arrive To show their loyalty to the king. King Abdulaziz’s mandate for Riyadh. In the years that followed, Abdulaziz bin Rashid, the ruler of the Hail region at the time, tried to besiege King Abdulaziz and his army, and the Battle of Qassim took place. King Abdulaziz was victorious and Al-Rashid was killed. In 1913, King Abdulaziz attacked a Turkish garrison in Al-Hofuf in order to open a crossing to the strategic eastern region. The king was victorious, and some of the soldiers were captured, then he allowed them to return to Turkey. Later, the Ottoman rule of the region collapsed, and the king annexed it to the kingdom In the following years, after the increase in the internal problems of the Al-Rashid state, King Abdul Aziz was able to overthrow him, open its cities, and annex them to the kingdom. In the following few years, there were skirmishes between King Abdulaziz And Sharif Hussein, which caused Sharif Hussein to lose a large part of his lands, and he retreated to the lands of the Hijaz. In 1921, the "Asir" tribes went to King Abdul Aziz and complained to him about the rule of a person called Hussein bin Ayed, who was ruling these lands and tribes, and who was under the guardianship of Sharif Hussein, so the king rose. Abdul Aziz sent an army to Ben Ayed and demanded his surrender, but Ayed refused, and the two armies fought, and King Abdul Aziz was victorious and annexed the lands of Asir to the kingdom. In 1924, the Turks ended the Islamic caliphate in the region, and Sharif Hussein saw in this an opportunity to install himself as a new ruler of the Arabs after the Turks. He faced the resentment of the Arabs and Muslims at that time and then King Abdulaziz annexed Taif, then Mecca, and Sharif Hussein besieged and what was left of his army. After that, Sharif Hussein left power to his son Ali and fled to Cyprus and died there. After his son Ali assumed power, King Abdulaziz was able, after battles with Sharif’s army, to annex Medina and besiege Sharif Ali 11 month later, Sharif Ali and his army surrendered, and the lands of Hejaz become lands for the kingdom,He was then called the Sultan of Najd, and in a ceremony in 1926, the title of King of Hijaz was given to King Abdulaziz.were annexedIn the early thirties, the lands of Najran and Jizan were annexed, and in 1935 the unification of the entire kingdom’s lands was announced
So it was the europeans causing problems