Shatt al-Arab

Coordinates: 30°24′26″N 48°09′06″E / 30.40722°N 48.15167°E / 30.40722; 48.15167
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Shatt-al-Arab
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Shatt al-Arab
Shatt al-Arab pictured near Basra, Iraq
Drainage basin and two major tributaries
Location
CountryIraq, Iran, Kuwait[1][2]
Physical characteristics
SourceEuphrates
 • elevation4 m (13 ft)
2nd sourceTigris
 • elevation4 m (13 ft)
Mouth 
 • location
Persian Gulf
 • coordinates
30°24′15.59″N 48°09′3.60″E / 30.4043306°N 48.1510000°E / 30.4043306; 48.1510000
 • elevation
0 m (0 ft)
Length204 km (127 mi)[3]
Basin size938,173 km2 (362,231 sq mi)[3] to 884,000 km2 (341,000 sq mi)
Width 
 • minimum250 m (820 ft)[3]
 • maximum1,500 m (4,900 ft)[3]
Discharge 
 • locationShatt al-Arab Delta, Persian Gulf
 • average(Period: 1971–2000)3,535 m3/s (124,800 cu ft/s)[4] (Period: 1977–2018)105.7 km3/a (3,350 m3/s)[3]
Discharge 
 • locationAbadan, Iran
 • average(Period: 1971–2000)3,531.6 m3/s (124,720 cu ft/s)[4]
Discharge 
 • locationBasra, Iraq
 • average(Period: 1971–2000)2,782.8 m3/s (98,270 cu ft/s)[4]
Discharge 
 • location
Euphrates rivers)
 • average(Period: 1971–2000)2,531.8 m3/s (89,410 cu ft/s)[4]
Basin features
Tributaries 
 • left
Euphrates

The Shatt al-Arab (

Arabic: شط العرب, lit. 'River of the Arabs'; Persian: اروندرود, romanized: Arvand Rud, lit. 'Swift River'[5]) is a river of some 200 kilometres (120 mi) in length that is formed at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the town of al-Qurnah in the Basra Governorate of southern Iraq. The southern end of the river constitutes the Iran–Iraq border down to its mouth, where it discharges into the Persian Gulf. The Shatt al-Arab varies in width from about 232 metres (761 ft) at Basra to 800 metres (2,600 ft) at its mouth. It is thought that the waterway formed relatively recently in geological time, with the Tigris and Euphrates originally emptying into the Persian Gulf via a channel further to the west. Kuwait's Bubiyan Island is part of the Shatt al-Arab delta.[1]

The Karun, a tributary which joins the waterway from the Iranian side, deposits large amounts of silt into the river; this necessitates continuous dredging to keep it navigable.[6]

The area used to hold the largest date palm forest in the world. In the mid-1970s, the region included 17–18 million date palms: an estimated one-fifth of the world's 90 million palm trees. However, by 2002, more than 14 million of the palms had been wiped out by the combined factors of war, salt and pests; this count includes around 9 million palms in Iraq and 5 million in Iran. Many of the remaining 3–4 million trees are in poor health.[7]

Geography

Map

The Shatt al-Arab is formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at Al-Qurnah, and flows into the Persian Gulf south of the city of Al-Faw.

History

3,000 years ago, the Persian Gulf was larger and the Shatt al-Arab had not yet formed.

Dispute over the river occurred during the Ottoman-Safavid era, prior to the establishment of an independent Iraq in the 20th century. In the early 16th century, the Iranian Safavids gained most of what is present-day Iraq, including Shatt al-Arab. They later lost these territories to the expanding Ottomans following the Peace of Amasya (1555).[8]

In the early 17th century, the Safavids under king (

Abbas I (r. 1588–1629) once again regained Shatt al-Arab. Control of the river was at last permanently ceded to the Ottomans with the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639. Control of the waterway was also temporarily lost by the Safavids to the Ottoma in this treaty.[9]
In general, the Treaty of Zuhab roughly re-established the common borders of the Ottoman and Safavid Empires the way they had been in 1555. However, the treaty never demarcated a precise and fixed boundary regarding the frontier in the south.

Later, Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747) succeeded in restoring Iranian control over Shatt al-Arab for a time. With the Treaty of Kerden (1746), however, the Zuhab boundaries were restored, ceding the river to the Turks once again.[10][11] The First Treaty of Erzurum (1823) concluded between Ottoman Turkey and Qajar Iran, resulted in the same.[12][13]

The

protocol between the Ottomans and the Persians was signed in Istanbul in 1913, which declared that the Ottoman-Persian frontier run along the thalweg, but World War I
canceled all plans.

Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Iraq 1932–1959 depicting the Shatt and the forest

During the

Baghdad Pact alliance.[16]

The Shatt al-Arab and the forest were depicted in the middle of the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Iraq, from 1932 to 1959.

Arab ferryman on the Shatt al-Arab 1958
Evening atmosphere on the Shatt al-Arab

Under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the late 1960s, Iran developed a strong military and took a more assertive stance in the Near East.[14] In April 1969, Iran abrogated the 1937 treaty over the Shatt al-Arab and Iranian ships stopped paying tolls to Iraq when they used the Shatt al-Arab.[17] The Shah argued that the 1937 treaty was unfair to Iran because almost all river borders around the world ran along the thalweg, and because most of the ships that used the Shatt al-Arab were Iranian.[18] Iraq threatened war over the Iranian move, but on 24 April 1969, an Iranian tanker escorted by Iranian warships (Joint Operation Arvand) sailed down the Shatt al-Arab, and Iraq—being the militarily weaker state—did nothing.[15] The Iranian abrogation of the 1937 treaty marked the beginning of a period of acute Iraqi-Iranian tension that was to last until the Algiers Accords of 1975.[15]

All

Algiers Accord in which Iraq recognized a series of straight lines closely approximating the thalweg (deepest channel) of the waterway, as the official border, in exchange for which Iran ended its support of the Iraqi Kurds.[20] The Algiers Accord was seen as a national humiliation in Iraq, causing much bitterness over what was seen as Iranian bullying.[15] However, the Algiers Accord saw Iran cease supporting the peshmerga as the Iranians closed the frontier, causing the Kurdish rebellion to promptly collapse.[21] The British journalist Patrick Brogan wrote that "the Iraqis celebrated their victory in the usual manner, by executing as many of the rebels as they could lay their hands on".[21]

In 1980, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq abrogated the 1975 treaty and Iraq invaded Iran. The main thrust of the military movement on the ground was across the waterway which was the stage for most of the military battles between the two armies. The waterway was Iraq's only outlet to the Persian Gulf, and thus, its shipping lanes were greatly affected by continuous Iranian attacks.[20]

When

Majnun Island.[22] During the fighting in the spring of 1988, the Iranians showed all the signs of collapsing morale.[24]
Brogan reported:

Reports from the front, both at Faw [Fao] and outside Basra, indicated that the Iranian resistance was surprisingly weak. The army that had shown such courage and élan early in the war now broke in a rout, and fled before the Arabs.[24]

During the 1988 battles, the Iranians seemed tired and worn out by the nearly eight years of the war, and "put up very little resistance" to the Iraqi offensives.[25] At the end of the Iran–Iraq War, both sides agreed to once again treat the Algiers Accord as binding.

Conflicts

Shatt al-Arab near Basra city, Iraq

Iranian–Iraqi dispute

Conflicting territorial claims and disputes over navigation rights between Iran and Iraq were among the main factors for the beginning of the Iran–Iraq War that lasted from 1980 to 1988, when the pre-1980 status quo was restored. The Iranian cities and major ports of Abadan and Khorramshahr and the Iraqi cities and major ports of Basra and Al-Faw are situated along this river.

Gulf War and Iraq War

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the waterway was a key military target for the coalition forces. Since it is the only outlet to the Persian Gulf, its capture was important in delivering humanitarian aid to the rest of the country,[citation needed] and stopping the flow of operations trying to break the naval blockade against Iraq.[citation needed] The British Royal Marines staged an amphibious assault to capture the key oil installations and shipping docks located at Umm Qasr on the al-Faw peninsula at the onset of the conflict.

Following the end of the war, the UK was given responsibility, subsequently mandated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1723, to patrol the waterway and the area of the Persian Gulf surrounding the river mouth. They were tasked until 2007 to make sure that ships in the area were not being used to transport munitions into Iraq. British forces also trained Iraqi naval units to take over the responsibility of guarding their waterways after the Coalition Forces left Iraq in December 2011.

On two separate occasions, Iranian forces operating on the Shatt al-Arab captured British Royal Navy sailors who they claim trespassed into their territory.

  • In 2004, several British servicemen were held for
    Kamal Kharrazi
    . The initial hardline approach came down to power struggles within the Iranian government. The British marines' weapons and boats were confiscated.
  • In 2007, a
    seizure of fifteen more British personnel
    became a major diplomatic crisis between the two nations. It was resolved after thirteen days when the Iranians unexpectedly released the captives under an "amnesty".

Naming

The river is also known in Iraq as the Dijla al-Awara (دجلة العوراء) and in Iran as the Arvand Rud (Persian: اروندرود, lit. 'Swift River').

The Persian epic poem Shahnameh (written between c. 977–1010 CE) and many other works of Middle Persian literature use the name Arvand (اروند) for the Tigris, the confluent of the Shatt al-Arab.[26] Iranians also used this name specifically to designate the Shatt al-Arab during the later Pahlavi period, and continue to do so since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.[26]

See also

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 248250022
    .
  2. ^ "Global Climate Change Impacts on Tigris Euphrates Rivers Basins" (PDF). p. 55.
  3. ^
    doi:10.1504/IJW.2019.106049
    .
  4. ^ a b c d "Tigris Euphrates Delta-Coastal".
  5. ^ "Shatt al Arab". Oxford Public International Law. Retrieved 23 April 2022. The Shatt al Arab river (or Arvand Rud in Persian) is the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris (Tigris and Euphrates Rivers), which starts in the Iraqi town of Al-Qornah and after circa 120 miles flows into the Persian Gulf.
  6. ^ "Iraq – Major Geographical Features". country-data.com. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
  7. ^ "UNEP/GRID-Sioux Falls". unep.net. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
  8. ^ Mikaberidze 2015, p. xxxi.
  9. ^ Dougherty & Ghareeb 2013, p. 681.
  10. ^ Shaw 1991, p. 309.
  11. ISBN 978-1134429905
    .
  12. ^ Kia 2017, p. 21.
  13. ^ Potts 2004.
  14. ^ a b Karsh, Efraim The Iran-Iraq War 1980–1988, London: Osprey, 2002 page 7
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Karsh, Efraim The Iran-Iraq War 1980–1988, London: Osprey, 2002 page 8
  16. ^ Karsh, Efraim The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988, London: Osprey, 2002 page7
  17. ^ Karsh, Efraim, The Iran-Iraq War 1980–1988, London: Osprey, 2002, pp. 7–8
  18. ^ Bulloch, John and Morris, Harvey The Gulf War, London: Methuen, 1989, p. 37.
  19. ^ Brogan, Patrick World Conflicts, London: Bloomsbury, 1989, p. 260.
  20. ^ a b Abadan Archived 2009-08-08 at the Wayback Machine, Sajed Archived 7 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved on March 16, 2009.
  21. ^ a b Brogan, Patrick page 298
  22. ^ a b Karsh, Efraim page 57
  23. ^ Brogan, Patrick, p. 264
  24. ^ a b Brogan, Patrick, p. 265
  25. ^ Brogan, Patrick World Conflicts, London: Bloomsbury, 1989, p. 253.
  26. ^ a b M. Kasheff, Encyclopædia Iranica: Arvand-Rud. – Retrieved on 18 October 2007.

Sources

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shatt al-Arab.

30°24′26″N 48°09′06″E / 30.40722°N 48.15167°E / 30.40722; 48.15167

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