A workshop began in Baghdad, with the participation of an Iraqi government team that includes security and defense experts, diplomats, university professors and researchers to discuss the provisions of the "Algeria Agreement" between Iraq and Iran signed in 1975, which is one of the main reasons for the outbreak of the eight-year war between the two countries in the eighties of the last century.

The Iraqi National Security Adviser, Qassem al-Araji, chaired the workshop, which began yesterday, Wednesday, under the title "The 1975 Algiers Agreement between Cancellation or Implementation", in the presence of the head of the Department of Neighboring Countries, the Legal Adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, professors of law and strategic studies in Iraqi universities, specialists in the ministries of defense, transport and water resources, and the Department of Consultants and Iraqi ports.

The Office of the National Security Adviser, headed by Qassem Al-Araji, chaired today a workshop entitled (The 1975 Algiers Agreement between Cancellation or Implementation), in the presence of directors from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, law professors in Iraqi universities, and specialists in the ministries of defense, transport, water resources, and Iraqi ports.

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Haider Salman (@sahaider75) February 16, 2022

According to a statement issued by Al-Araji’s media office, the workshop included a comprehensive legal and political review of the Algiers Agreement of 1975, according to the interests of Iraqi national security. wild frontier.

The workshop concluded, according to the statement, "to agree to hold several meetings and expand the circle of participation in them, to come up with a unified national vision on this file."

The Shatt al-Arab is one of the main reasons for the outbreak of the war between the two countries in the eighties of the last century (Getty Images)

source of tension

The Shatt al-Arab is the source of the historical tension in relations between Iraq and Iran, and one of the main reasons for the outbreak of war between the two countries in the eighties of the last century, as this waterway is of great strategic importance.

Iraq signed an agreement with Iran in 1937, and this was the first treaty to be concluded after the establishment of the modern Iraqi state in 1921, where the two parties agreed to organize the work of a special committee to demarcate borders and attached some protocols to it. Iraqi sovereignty, except for specific areas of 16 km in front of "Abadan" and "Al-Muhamrah" (Khorramshahr), in which the border line with the deepest point is called the "Taluk Line".

The length of the Shatt al-Arab is about 190 km, north of Basra, and flows into the Persian Gulf (Al-Jazeera).

About 3 decades after the signing of the agreement, Iran announced on April 19, 1969 its rejection of this border demarcation, and considered the point of the bottom line in the Shatt al-Arab - which was agreed upon in 1913 between Iran and the Ottomans - as its official border with Iraq, while Baghdad saw that Tehran's dissolution The treaty is a flagrant violation of international law.

The two countries returned to sign the Algiers Agreement in 1975 in exchange for Iran stopping support for the Iraqi Kurdish movement, and Baghdad recognized at the time that the border on the Shatt al-Arab extends along the entire bottom line, that is, half of the river is given to Iran.

The agreement was signed on behalf of Iraq by Saddam Hussein, Vice President of the Republic, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, "with the Shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, through the mediation of the late Algerian President Houari Boumediene.

Saddam Hussein, Houari Boumediene and Muhammad Reda Pahlavi on the sidelines of the signing of the Algiers Agreement in 1975 AD.

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But the agreement did not last long, as Saddam Hussein canceled it on September 17, 1980, after he became president of Iraq, about 5 years after signing it himself, and 5 days before the outbreak of war between the two countries (1980-1988).

Saddam returned and recognized the Algiers Agreement after his invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, to secure friendship with Iran and devote himself to the war of the international coalition forces led by the United States, which was seeking to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

In March 2019, Iraq and Iran issued a joint statement after a visit by former President Hassan Rouhani to Baghdad, in which the two parties declared their "serious determination to implement the 1975 border and good-neighbourliness agreement between Iraq and Iran," referring to the "Algiers Agreement."

The Shatt al-Arab consists of the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, north of Basra. Its length is about 190 km, and it flows into the Arabian Gulf at the edge of the city of Faw, the southernmost point in Iraq.