Saudi Arabia has said it enjoys “full rights” along with Kuwait to a disputed gas field in the resource-rich Gulf, pushing back against claims by Iran, state media reported late on Tuesday.
The field, known as Arash in Iran and Dorra in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, falls under “joint ownership between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Kuwait, and they alone have full rights,” the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing a foreign ministry source.
The Saudi Arabian statement appeared one day after Kuwait reinvited Iran to participate in talks on their sea borders.
The dispute over the field — whose recoverable reserves are estimated at about 220 billion cubic meters — dates back to the 1960s, when Iran and Kuwait awarded overlapping offshore concessions.
Last year, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement to develop the field, despite objections from Iran, which branded the deal as “illegal.”
National Iranian Oil Co managing director Mohsen Khojsteh Mehr last week said that “there is full preparation to start drilling in the joint Arash oil field.”
“Considerable resources have been allocated to the board of directors of the National Iranian Oil Company for the implementation of the development plan for this field,” he said in remarks printed by Iranian state media.
Iran and Kuwait have held unsuccessful talks for many years over their disputed maritime border area, which is rich in natural gas.
Saudi Arabia is also a part of the dispute as it shares with Kuwait maritime gas and oil resources in the area.
Iranian drilling of the field in 2001 spurred Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to agree on a maritime border deal which stipulated that they jointly develop the offshore zone.
In March, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced a surprise rapprochement deal brokered by China that agreed to restore ties after a seven-year rift, raising hopes for reduced tensions between the Middle East heavyweights.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS