Iraq and Iran concluded 46 years ago a border agreement signed by Saddam Hussein, then Vice President of Iraq, and the Shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, under the auspices of former Algerian President Houari Boumediene.

The agreement signed on March 6, 1975 included a set of articles, most notably the sharing of the Shatt al-Arab between the two countries equally, and Baghdad aimed to quell the armed Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq, which was supported by Iran at the time.

However, this agreement did not last for long, as it was canceled in 1980 with the start of the Iran-Iraq war, so the border issue remains one of the deepest causes of conflict in the history of the Iraqi-Iranian conflict.

Al-Khafaji believes that the border problems between Iraq and Iran are historical and considers them the mother of crises between the two countries (Al-Jazeera Net)

Historical background

The border problems between Iraq and Iran extended throughout history, and it has been considered the mother of crises since the early beginnings of Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs during the Babylonian days, according to the professor of strategic policy, Assistant Doctor Qahtan Al-Khafaji.

And he explains - to Al-Jazeera Net - that the reason for the lack of demarcation of the borders between the two countries, according to historical indications, is due to Iran's real unwillingness to do so, in order to maintain a state of chaos and a state of expansion.

Al-Khafaji refers to agreements that preceded the Algiers agreement, including the 1913 agreement that included Iraq, Iran, the Arab Gulf states and some other regions. The bottom line point was adopted in the Shatt al-Arab, the separation between Iraq and Iran, and yet it was neither taken nor adopted.

Until the 1937 agreement that recognized all of the Shatt al-Arab to Iraq, and at that time there were signs of peace, until this agreement was called "the Middle East accord," according to Al-Khafaji.

And he continues, "In 1969, Iran withdrew from the agreement completely without presenting anything real on the ground, until the Algiers Agreement came in 1975."

The circumstances of the signature

Regarding the circumstances and the circumstances of the signing of the Algiers Agreement, the professor of political geography, Dr. Hussein Qassem Al-Yasiri, said that Saddam Hussein admitted in 1980 that he had to conclude this agreement and ceded half of the Shatt al-Arab to Iran because the Iraqi army could not continue fighting in northern Iraq at that time. Because of Iran's support for Mustafa Barzani, who was leading the Kurdish rebellion against the Iraqi state.

In his speech - to Al-Jazeera Net - Al-Yasiri expresses his belief that Saddam did not want at the time to negotiate with the Kurds in order to recognize the Kurdishness of Kirkuk, so he preferred to give up half of the Shatt al-Arab to Iran.

The reason for choosing Algeria - according to Al-Yasiri - was the holding of the summit of the member states of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Algeria, at the initiative of the then Algerian President Boumediene, and there were meetings between Reza Pahlavi and Saddam Hussein, in which talks about bilateral relations were held between The two countries.

The Shatt al-Arab between Iraq and Iran is the most prominent provisions of the Algeria Agreement between Iraq and Iran (Al-Jazeera Net)

The content of the agreement

Among the most prominent provisions of the agreement was the final planning of the borders of the two land states, according to the Constantinople Protocol in 1913, and the records of the 1914 Boundary Commission, according to Al-Yasiri.

It also included determining the river borders according to the Taluk line (the deepest points in the middle of the Shatt al-Arab), the two countries' restoration of security and mutual trust along their common borders, and the commitment to conduct strict and effective control over these borders in order to put a final end to all cases of infiltration of a subversive nature.

Al-Yasiri considered Saddam's signature of the agreement a violation of Article (3) of the interim Iraqi constitution in 1970, which states that the sovereignty and land of Iraq is an indivisible unit, and it is not permissible to relinquish any part of it.

Assistant Professor of Strategic Relations, Dr. Muhammad Maysar Fathi notes that the agreement granted Iran wide border areas that it did not obtain in previous treaties, as it achieved direct gains once the agreement entered into force.

He explained - to Al-Jazeera Net - that Iran's situation in the Shatt al-Arab made it a partner in sovereignty over the largest part of it based on the redefinition of the borders there on the basis of the Taluk line.

Elias saw that the process of signing the Algiers agreement came in difficult political circumstances that the two sides went through (Al-Jazeera Net)

Agreement collapsed

The researcher specializing in Iranian foreign policy, Firas Elias, believes that the mistake made by the Iraqi leadership was to sign a political, not strategic, agreement with Iran, which made Saddam Hussein realize that this agreement achieved Iranian interest more than the interests of both sides.

And he added - to Al-Jazeera Net - that the Iraqi leadership at that time speeded up the conclusion of the agreement and the lack of success in extrapolating the changing conditions inside Iran, and the desire to end tensions inside Iraq, pushed the Iraqi leadership to make fundamental concessions to the Iranian side, in order to preserve the political system.

Elias explains that the signing of the Algiers agreement came in difficult political circumstances that the two sides went through, and perhaps these circumstances produced the state of war between them later, which made this agreement the subject of continuous criticism between the two sides until this moment.

Iraqi soldiers celebrate, after their victory over Iran, in a confrontation between the two countries in the eight-year war (French - Archive)

The spark of war

The Iranian border harassments provided Saddam Hussein with a golden opportunity to break the bottleneck, as he saw these harassment as an aggression confirming Iran's abandonment of the obligations it pledged to the agreement, according to Elias.

He adds that Saddam found that these circumstances represented an appropriate opportunity to review the Algiers Agreement and negotiate a new agreement with the Iranians, which would restore the political balance between the two sides.

Elias asserts that the abolition of the Algeria agreement was one of the reasons for the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, the mobilization of Iraqi military forces on the borders with Iran, and then the start of military operations within the Iranian borders on September 22, 1980, all of these moves came as outputs to cancel the agreement with Iran.

The contention continues

Al-Khafaji points out that border disputes have continued so far, and that there are Iranian violations on the Iraqi borders, specifically in the important oil area of ​​Fakkah, which Iran controlled after 2003, and began to exploit it.

Fathi called on Iraq and Iran to seek to achieve common interests and to ensure cooperative relations based on mutual interdependence, based on the foundations of rational strategic thinking.