IRAQ-IRAN BORDER NEGOTIATIONS TO MOVE AHEAD - MAYBE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 002981 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/11/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV PBTS IZ IR SUBJECT: IRAQ-IRAN BORDER NEGOTIATIONS TO MOVE AHEAD - MAYBE BAGHDAD 00002981 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Iraq and Iran appear ready to commence work soon to resolve outstanding border issues, assuming PM Maliki and other key GOI constituencies give the political green light and make available necessary funding. Senior MFA officials who participated in late-August bilateral talks in Tehran said the two sides had agreed to follow up with a series of meetings to begin in November at the ambassadorial and experts level. The 1975 Algiers agreement was a contentious issue in the discussions: the Iraqis do not to want the now-abrogated Agreement, which acknowledged Iran's right to the Shatt al-Arab to the thalweg, to serve as the sole basis for current discussions; the Iranians were adamant that it must. According to one version of the recent talks, only the personal intervention of Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi persuaded the Iranians to accept a compromise. The sides are now proceeding using "previous agreements" as the publicly acceptable point of reference for their talks. The green light in Baghdad for detailed negotiations is not a sure thing, and a successful conclusion to any such talks is also far from assured. End summary. -------------- Iran-Iraq Border Negotiations -------------- ¶2. (C) An Iraqi MFA team led by Deputy Foreign Minister Haj Hmoud visited Tehran in late August to continue bilateral efforts, begun in early 2008, to resolve outstanding border issues. In a September 10 readout to Poloffs, MFA Neighboring Countries Director Taha al-Abassi characterized the discussions as a "tug of war among the negotiators." A key focus of the talks was the apparent shift of the thalweg, the line of the deepest point of a water channel (in this case the Shatt al-Arab) which had, under the 1975 Algiers Agreement, served as the maritime boundary. ¶3. (C) A non-expert, Al-Abassi claimed that natural movement of mud and sediment has shifted the thalweg. These natural changes, he said, have been compounded by Iraq's (during the Saddam regime) removal of ships sunk during the Iran-Iraq war from the Iraqi side of the thalweg with no reciprocal Iranian removal, which resulted in greater quantities of water flowing into and through Iraqi territory. This, in turn, led the channel (and the thalweg) to shift west, resulting in the loss of "hundreds of square kilometers" of Iraqi land. ¶4. (C) Continuing, Al-Abassi asserted that the shifting of the channel has resulted in a number of Iraqi ports in the Shatt al-Arab now being on the Iranian side of the thalweg. Al-Abassi noted that compounding this situation is the fact that, over the years, many border markers were either lost, destroyed or moved (he claimed by the Iranians),particularly in areas where there are petroleum deposits. -------------- Algiers Agreement Sensitivities -------------- ¶5. (C) Al-Abassi said the Iraqi team's instructions were to ensure that the Algiers Agreement was not the sole point of reference for the border negotiations. (Note: In the Algiers Agreement, signed in 1975 between Saddam and the Shah, Iraq acknowledged Iran's right to half the Shatt al-Arab in exchange for Tehran's cessation of its support for Kurdish rebels battling Saddam's regime. End note.) He highlighted two constituencies in particular that feel strongly about this: the Kurds, who are still bitter about the Agreement's reference to them as an "outlaw" population, and Iraqi nationalists, who never accepted Saddam's decision to recognize Iranian rights on the Shatt al-Arab and continue to view the entire area as Iraqi territory. ¶6. (C) Al-Abassi said the MFA is still awaiting guidance from the Prime Minister regarding the extent to which the Algiers Agreement will guide the ongoing discussions. He recounted that during the first round of talks in early 2008, the Iranian side, recognizing Iraqi domestic sensitivities, agreed not to insist on or mention publicly BAGHDAD 00002981 002 OF 003 direct references to Algiers. However, when the Iraqi delegation arrived in Tehran for the second round, the Iranians reversed their position and were again insisting that Algiers be the basis for the border discussions. The Iraqi team told the Iranians that this was unacceptable, and proposed as an alternative to make general references to "previous agreements." Al-Abassi noted that "there are plenty of previous agreements on this, dating back to the Ottomans." ¶7. (C) Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki rejected this compromise solution outright. The Iraqi delegation then sought the intervention of Prime Minister Maliki and Foreign Minister Zebari; both were unavailable. They were, however, able to reach Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi who, using his long-standing, close connections in Tehran ("you Americans know all about these," Al-Abassi said) to intervene. In Al-Abassi's account, the Iranians relented following Abdul Mehdi's intervention, again accepting the general reference to "previous agreements." ¶8. (C) In a separate meeting September 11 with Senior Advisor Gray, Deputy Foreign Minister Hmoud, who led the Iraqi negotiating team, offered a somewhat different account of the negotiating dynamic, portraying the Iranians in a less flexible light. Iran, Hmoud said, was insistent on Iraq recognizing the Algiers Agreement as a basis of negotiations. "Practically, what could we do," Hamoud asked rhetorically, saying this was not the right time to resort to force or "call out the army". "We had to negotiate." Hmoud explained that he had drafted a memorandum for the Foreign Minister urging Iraq to put the years of war with Iran behind it and to "turn a new page" with Iran. When Hmoud agreed to accept the Algiers Agreement (upon instructions) as a basis for future discussions under the formulation of "previous agreements", the Iranians "agreed with everything after that." -------------- Next Steps -------------- ¶9. (C) According to Al-Abassi, the follow-up to the August discussions will be a series of bilateral meetings at the expert and Ambassadorial levels, tentatively set to commence in November. This will include a "High Level Commission" to oversee the process, an "Experts Commission" that will focus on the technical aspects of border demarcation, and 11 regional border commissions each with responsibility for specific parts of the border, including one dedicated to the Shatt al- Arab. Representatives from the Ministries of Defense (clearing landmines is a big issue),Interior (to coordinate on security),Oil, Water Resources and others will participate in the expert discussions. The High Level Commission is to kick off the process with a meeting at the ambassadorial level in the Iranian port city of Khoramshah on November 2, after which the Experts Commission's first order of business will be to conduct a comprehensive review" of the facts that they will present to the High Level Commission at the undersecretary level in January or February. ¶10. (C) Concurrent with this, the 11 regional border commissions are also supposed to begin meeting to discuss issues specific to their region. Deputy Foreign Minister Hmoud added that as a result of the Tehran discussions, Iraq agreed to send a team to live and work across the border in Iran where construction will begin on physical border crossing structures. Dealing with land border issues has been easier, he noted, because of long standing agreements between Iran and Iraq dating as far back 1913. In the Shaat al-Arab, however, the shifting thalweg made the issue more difficult to resolve. -------------- -------------- A Multi-Year Effort Requiring International Expertise -------------- -------------- ¶11. (C) To rectify the changes in the Shatt al-Arab that have taken place since 1975, both Al-Abassi and Hmoud told us (separately) that the underlying principle would not be to negotiate equitable exchange of parcels of land, but rather to shift the channel -- and the thalweg -- back to where it was in 1975. Iraqi technical experts assert that this is doable, but will require significant resources, three to four years of effort, and the recognized expertise of prominent international engineering firms. Assuming the Experts Committee commences its work later in the year, this almost certainly will be a topic of discussion. -------------- -------------- But Political Green Light and Funding Still Needed -------------- -------------- BAGHDAD 00002981 003 OF 003 ¶12. (C) Al-Abassi cautioned that the plan outlined above is contingent on the MFA receiving Prime Ministerial approval to go forward. Allocation of necessary funding and development of a mechanism to disburse these funds by the Prime Minister's office are also critical. Al-Abassi appeared guardedly optimistic that this would happen, perhaps within the next two weeks, but qualified his comment by noting that "things move very slowly in our Government." He also reiterated strong internal political opposition to any bilateral negotiations that could be interpreted as recognizing any Iranian rights to the Shatt al-Arab. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶13. (C) The underlying truth of the dynamics and motivations of both Iraq and Iran on this issue is about as clear as the mud shifting in the Shatt al-Arab. It is unclear whether both sides (or either) truly want a settlement of border issues or only the appearance of seeking to cooperate. The combination of strong nationalist sentiment, lingering bitterness among the Kurds about the circumstances that led to the Algiers Agreement in the first place, and the ever present factor of oil leaves open the question of how the border rectification process will proceed. If Al-Abassi is correct, we should know shortly if the mechanisms as agreed in Tehran at the end of August will begin. Assessing whether this process may actually lead to a settlement of outstanding claims and resolve the border issues once and for all will take longer. End comment. CROCKER