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UAE, Saudi officials discuss border issues

ABU DHABI - United Arab Emirates and Saudi officials held talks here on Tuesday believed to have centered on border issues and the sharing of oilfields along the common frontier.

The UAE and Saudi official news agencies gave few details about the meeting between UAE President Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan and visiting Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz.

But a Riyadh-based Gulf official earlier told AFP the talks would deal with border and oilfield questions.

“The talks will center on finalising border issues and agreeing on how to exploit oilfields along the common frontier,” the official said, requesting anonymity.

He said the two governments, partners in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), had entrusted the border “file” to Prince Nayef on the Saudi side and Deputy Premier and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Shaikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahayan on the UAE side.

Shaikh Hamdan was one of several top officials who attended the UAE president’s meeting with Prince Nayef before Shaikh Khalifa and Nayef held one-on-one talks, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

SPA listed a number of officials responsible for border questions among the Saudi delegation.

SPA said Nayef handed Khalifa a written message “on bilateral relations between the two brotherly countries” from Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz.

Prince Nayef denied earlier this year that there was a border dispute between his kingdom and the UAE, saying reports of a row were “totally devoid of truth.”

Gulf officials said in February that tensions had emerged between the UAE and Saudi Arabia over a border row dating back to the 1970s.

The row was supposed to have been settled under an agreement signed in 1974 in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah.

Under the pact, the Saudis dropped their claim to the Buraimi oasis region.

In return, Abu Dhabi gave up a 25-kilometer-long (15-mile-long) strip of land linking it to Qatar, part of the Sabkhat Matti region in the west of the UAE, and some 80 percent of the resources of the Shaybah oilfield located in the vast Rub al-Khali desert in southeast Saudi Arabia.

The agreement stipulated that “in case of oil finds along the common border, whether preceding or following the accord, ownership of the whole field will go to the country where the largest part of the field is located.”

Shaybah sits atop some 15 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and untapped gas reserves of 25 trillion cubic feet.