A few days before Washington and Tel Aviv launched their war against Iran on 28 February, the Iraqi government submitted a claim over Gulf waters to the UN in the form of a list of geographical coordinates. This provoked immediate protest, particularly from Gulf Cooperation Council members: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. The question of Iraq’s access to these coveted waters has persisted for the past century, but has taken on a new dimension in the current, significantly more tense regional context – especially given that Iran is also concerned.

At root, this dispute is a classic geopolitical one: Iraq wants to escape from a state of being almost entirely landlocked. In 1914 the UK established a protectorate over Kuwait to stop the Ottoman empire and its ally Germany from obtaining a deepwater port at the western end of the Gulf and thereby gaining the ability to threaten the route to India.

Iraq, which gained independence from the UK in 1932, found itself with no deepwater port, and very limited access to the sea – only 60km of muddy coastline, including the Khor Abdullah waterway. True, it has the port of Basra on the border with Iran, on the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which is formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, whose waters the two countries share. But the 1975 Algiers agreement fixed the actual border along the river’s median line, meaning Basra is 55km from the sea along a shared waterway.

To secure a less vulnerable outlet to the sea, Iraq also developed the port of Umm Qasr, at the head of a canalised estuary shared with Kuwait. Yet Baghdad never really accepted this situation. After the Free Officers’ revolt in 1958, it claimed sovereignty over Kuwait and refused to recognise it for two years after it gained independence in 1961. Iraq subsequently maintained its claims to the islands of Bubiyan and Warbah, which remained under Kuwaiti sovereignty. This was one of (…)

Full article: 1 588 words.

Didier Ortolland

Didier Ortolland is a former deputy director for the law of the sea, river law and polar affairs in the legal affairs directorate of France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (2016-21). His most recent publication is Les Mers de Chine: Géopolitique, confrontation et droit international, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2024.

(2) Mahatma Gandhi, ‘The Jews in Palestine’, Harijan, New Delhi, 26 November 1938.

(4) This quotation comes from Modi’s speech at the Knesset on 25 February 2026.

(5) Quoted in Azad Essa, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel, Pluto Books, London, 2023.

(6) Except when the flag is raised higher than the Indian one.