Iraq’s Supreme Court strikes down maritime border deal with Kuwait

Iraq's Federal Supreme Court decided Monday to invalidate a maritime border agreement with Kuwait under which the two countries shared a key waterway in the Gulf.

The decision against the Khor Abdullah agreement followed a trial related to an ongoing dispute over the deal, which was signed in 2012 and ratified in 2013 and concerned maritime borders and navigation regulations.

The court cited its inconsistency with the Iraqi Constitution, which mandates approval through legislation passed with a two-thirds majority in parliament, said a statement.

Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 833 in 1993 which determined the land border between Iraq and Kuwait.

However, the delineation of the maritime border was left to the two countries.

After the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Iraq and Kuwait in 2003, negotiations began to determine the borders.

In this context, an agreement regulating navigation in the Khor Abdullah region was signed in 2012 and approved by Iraq in 2013.

However, the agreement had been criticized by some Iraqi politicians, lawmakers and experts who claimed that it removed Khor Abdullah from Iraq's sovereign territory.

According to the world's leading geopolitical intelligence forum Stratfor, the Khor Abdullah is a narrow waterway that leads in from the Persian Gulf, curving around Kuwait's Bubiyan and Warba islands on one side and Iraq's Al Faw Peninsula on the other.