POLITICS-YEMEN-SAUDI ARABIA: Border Treaty Signed

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Khaled Almahdi

SANA'A, Jun 15 2000 (IPS) - A 66-year-old border dispute between Yemen and Saudi Arabia ended this week with the signing of a border treaty.

The dispute over the demarcation of the 1,458 kilometre long border line has soured relations between the two countries for decades.

The dispute revolved around the two boundary points of Jabal Thar (Thar Mountain) in the east and Ras Alme’waj coastal point, 300km before the Red Sea coast, which were equivocally defined in Attaif Treaty which ended the brief war between Saudi Arabia and the then North Yemen in 1934.

Although the borderline has been ill-defined since 1934, the demarcation dispute began after Yemen discovered its first oil field close to the border with Saudi Arabia. By then Saudi Arabia had begun to claim territorial rights in oil areas.

In 1992, Saudi authorities sent warning letters to six foreign oil companies operating in Yemen informing them that they were excavating in Saudi lands. Most of the companies ignored the warnings and went ahead with their excavations.

The treaty, which was signed by the Yemeni Foreign Minister, Abdulqader Bagammal, and his Saudi counterpart, Prince Saud Alfaisal, in the Saudi city of Jeddah, is expected to pave the way for terminating the disagreements between the two Arab states on border demarcation.

No details on the agreement were given, but the two sides said the interior ministers in the two countries would chair a committee to supervise the realization of the treaty and to choose a demarcation company.

“We achieved a peaceful, friendly, brotherly, and satisfactory solution that would be preserved by the future generations in both Yemen and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” said the Yemeni president Ali Abdulla Saleh, who paid a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia to oversee the final stages of the treaty.

“With this treaty, we start a new era in the already excellent Yemeni-Saudi ties, a new page of relations would be opened,” Saleh said immediately following the signing of the treaty.

The treaty defines the procedures for the demarcation of the inland and maritime borders.

Yemen regards the treaty, not only as dispute-ending, but as evidence of Yemen’s peaceful policy in view of border dissensions with its neighbours.

“During a decade, Republic of Yemen presented three important patterns of peaceful direction for solving the boundary disputes with Sultanate of Oman, Eritrea, and ultimately Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” said an editorial in the Althawra official daily this week.

“Yemen, by playing the part of a peace partner, is indeed regaining its ordinary role in the region to preserve security and peace,” the paper added.

Although the border dispute dates back to 1934, the serious negotiations for border demarcation started after the two parties signed a memorandum of understanding in 1995.

According to the memorandum, the two countries set up three committees; the military committee, the maritime committee, and the border committee, to prevent any violations over their boundaries.

Observers here predict that the treaty could pave the way for Yemen to receive financial aid from the rich neighbours, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States.

Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world, has been implementing a several comprehensive economic reform programmes backed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund since 1995. So any aid from it’s neighbours would be welcomed.

But, despite the optimism which prevails among the public here that the treaty could open new horizons regarding the economic co- operation, it seems for Saudis to be only a border settlement.

Saudi Arabia appeared keen to make it clear that achieving such a settlement for the border issue does not mean opening the door for Yemenis to return to work in Saudi Arabia.

“The treaty does not touch on giving facilities to Yemeni workers or allowing Yemenis to enter the Kingdom without the need for (Saudi)sponsors,” Saudi interior minister prince, Naif Ben Abdulaziz, was quoted by the Saudi daily Alriyadh as saying this week.

During the oil boom in the Arab Gulf region in the 1970s, 1.5 million Yemeni workers immigrated to the rich monarchies of the Gulf, notably Saudi Arabia, where they were allowed to enter the kingdom and were given preferential treatment. Yemenis had no need for Saudi sponsors, and were allowed to have their own businesses without the customary Saudi partner.

In 1990, Saudi Arabia expelled 800.000 Yemenis due to the alleged Yemeni siding with Iraq during the Iraqi invasion of the Gulf state of Kuwait.

“Does the treaty include allowing us to come back to work in Saudi? If not, it is nothing,” says Ali Atta’ who returned from Saudi Arabia during the Gulf crisis.

The Arab League welcomed the signing of the treaty, describing it as a “historic step to help remove obstacles to the development of relations between the two Arab countries”.

A statement from the pan-Arab league said: “The achievement will lay down a solid foundation for close cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Yemen and also for the march of joint Arab action”.

Analysts believe the treaty will clear the way for Yemen to join the Gulf club, the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), of which Yemen tried to become a member, but has, in the past, been refused.

“This achievement (the treaty) makes Yemen more closer to the Gulf Co-operation Council’s membership,” says Dr. Fares Assaqaf, chair of the Future Studies Center.

“Yemen is one of the region’s states, so the natural place for it is this club,” he adds.