Yemen and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – the “Last
Missing Fence in the Desert”
On June 12, 2000, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Yemen
signed an agreement which finally delineated the border
between the two states. Previous to doing so, the lack of a
boundary between the two had become known as the “last
missing fence in the desert,” i.e. the last remaining
border in Peninsula Arabia which was as yet to be
agreed.
The dispute had its origin in the withdrawal of Ottoman
influence on the Arabian Peninsular, a growing regional
awareness of the notion of the “state” and a complex
power-play between tribal and dynastic groups within the
region at large. And of course, the British presence in
Aden had repercussions which endured until the Aden
Emergency and beyond.
A boundary between Yemen and the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia was first agreed in 1935 following a brief war
between Ibn Saud and the Imam of Yemen, Imam Yahya. The war
was fought over the border region of Asir, claimed by the
Imamate but effectively under Saudi control (and arguably a
dormant thorn in the flesh of contemporary Saudi/Yemeni
relations.)
The subsequent peace agreement (signed in the coastal
town of Taifa and hence “the Taifa Agreement”) delimited a
boundary from Midi, a point on the shared coastline, to an
oasis near the town of Najran, but left the boundary east
of that point undelimited.
The Taifa Agreement was (and according to a clause
within the treaty itself) renewed every 20 years – but not
always with a great deal of ceremony. Relations between the
two countries reflected and were driven by the plethora of
ideological and economic factors which emerged within the
peninsular in the 20th century (including Nasserism, the
Soviet influence, and the discovery of oil in the KSA). But
it was the emergence of “two Yemens,” and the cycle of war
and rapprochement which dominated.
In the last decade of the 20th century, many of the
contradictions in the Yemeni/Saudi relationship came to the
fore – hinting that an agreed boundary would not be on the
cards for decades to come. Yemen remained largely dependent
on Saudi financial assistance and on remittances from the
large Yemeni labour force in Saudi which was so sorely
needed for that country’s development, and relations
plummeted after the Saudi government suspected Yemen of
siding with Iraqi after the latter’s invasion of Kuwait –
and some 880,000 Yemenis were returned across the border,
many of whom would spend years in hastily erected camps for
internally displaced persons.
Nonetheless, it became apparent that there existed a
shared desire to resolve the border issue – strong enough
event to survive a six month Yemeni civil war border
clashes around the Asir region, and a confrontation on the
island of Duweimah in May 1998.
Each had strong reasons for resolving the issue.
Terrorism had become a significant issue for Saudi Arabia –
and in order to securitize the border it was necessary to
establish in international law its exact position. The
Yemeni government was anxious to normalize relations with
its wealthy northern neighbour in order that it might
invest more heavily, and absorb some of the workers still
displaced within Yemen. The need to clarify the position
for the sake of interested oil companies, also, played a
role, as did the encouragement of the United States.
In 2000, the treaty was agreed by arbitration
proceedings (during which Menas Associates and Richard
Schofield were involved on behalf of Yemen), with the The
International Boundary Treaty between Yemen and Saudi
Arabia being signed June 12th.
The Treaty covers the entire Saudi-Yemeni maritime and
land boundary “stretching from the tripoint of the Yemeni
–Omani Saudi –land boundaries in the east to the tri-point
of the Yemeni-Eritrean-Saudi maritime boundary in the Red
Sea, dividing the maritime and land boundaries into three
sectors, the first covering the border extending from the
Red Sea coast at a land terminus “located at the quay of
ras al-mu’waj…to the mountain jabar al-thar” (i.e., the
line “defined and largely demarcated in the Treaty of
Taif), while a second sector refers to the area which had
previously been undefined and runs from jabal al-thar to
the intersection of the Saudi, Yemeni and Omani boundaries
at 52 east longitude, 19 north latitude, while the third
sector defines the maritime boundary in the Red Sea between
Saudi, Eritrea and Yemen.
The subsequent decade has indeed, seen an upturn in
relations between the two countries – although immediate
events subsequent to the agreement were not wholly without
event. The borderzone was and is only sparsely inhabited,
however numerous and well-armed tribal groups took
exception to the delimitation and to the imposition of
nationality by a previously undecided boundary. And within
a year of the signing, the government of Yemen was
complaining that Saudi governments had literally
over-stepped the mark in their creation of a “security
wall,” in an attempt to reduce the incidence of gun
smuggling. The Saudis subsequently scaled down their
efforts, and tension subsided, although the relationship
between Yemen and Saudi remains complex, and not without
contradictions.