Len,
>There are two - one south of Kuwait, and another west of Kuwait.
>Saudi maps show a border through the western one, through the lower
>half of it, while other maps sometimes show no neutral zone and other
>show a netural zone in a roughly diamond shape with no division in it.
Information on the neutral zone seems quite hard to come by. I believe the
Saudi Arabia-Kuwait neutral zone was partitioned in 1971, whilst the Saudi
Arabia-Iraq neutral zone was partitioned in 1983 (see appended text).
However, the neutral zone was not deleted from the ISO 3166-1 list until
1993. I'm not sure whether this applied to one zone or the other, or both.
Regards,
Kevin Meynell
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In 1922 Abd al Aziz ibn Abd ar Rahman Al Saud (r. 1902-53) and British
officials representing Iraqi interests signed the Treaty of Mohammara,
which established the boundary between Iraq and the future Saudi Arabia.
Later that year, the Al Uqair Convention signed by the two parties agreed
to the creation of a diamond-shaped Iraq-Saudi Arabia Neutral Zone of
approximately 7,000 square kilometers, adjacent to the western tip of
Kuwait, within which neither Iraq nor Saudi Arabia would build permanent
dwellings or installations. The agreement was designed to safeguard water
rights in the zone for beduin of both countries. In May 1938, Iraq and
Saudi Arabia signed an additional agreement regarding the administration of
the zone. Forty-three years later, Saudi Arabia and Iraq signed an
agreement that defined the border between the two countries and provided
for the division of the neutral zone between them. The agreement
effectively dissolved the neutral zone.
The boundary between Abd al Aziz's territories of Najd and the Eastern
Province and the British protectorate of Kuwait was first regulated by the
Al Uqair Convention in 1922. In an effort to avoid territorial disputes,
another diamond-shaped Divided Zone of 5,790 square kilometers directly
south of Kuwait was established. In 1938 oil was discovered in Kuwait's
southern Burqan fields, and both countries contracted with foreign oil
companies to perform exploration work in the Divided Zone. After years of
discussions, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait reached an agreement in 1965 that
divided the zone geographically, with each country administering its half
of the zone. The agreement guaranteed that the rights of both parties to
the natural resources in the whole zone would continue to be respected (see
Brief History , ch. 3) after each country had annexed its half of the zone
in 1966.