Kuwait said on Thursday that it had submitted an official response to an Iraqi complaint to the UN Security Council about the construction of a naval plant on the area of Fisht Al-Aij.
Official sources at the Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the construction of the naval plant on Fisht Al-Aij area in Kuwaiti territorial sea was “a sovereign right of the State of Kuwait in its territory and territorial sea”, according to Kuwaiti’s news agency, KUNA.
The Iraqi government had voiced its objection to the establishment of the naval plant, stressing that it would affect the demarcation of the maritime border between the two countries in the maritime area after the mark 162.
The official sources revealed that the Kuwaiti ministry of Foreign Affairs received this memorandum from the permanent delegation to the United Nations after its submission at the Security Council and immediately responded to it.
According to the sources, Kuwait has continued to remind the Iraqi side since 2005 until the latest meeting in May that the legal experts in the two countries had to start the negotiations on the demarcation of unmarked maritime borders through meetings of joint ministerial committees and ministerial messages in this regard.
“The State of Kuwait called on brothers in Iraq to resolve this issue by resorting to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982,” the sources underlined.
They added that Kuwait, in its official response, affirmed that Fisht Al-Aaij was an area of land formed naturally above sea level and was located in Kuwaiti territorial sea. “Consequently, the construction of the plant is a sovereign right of the State of Kuwait in its territory and territorial sea.”
The sources concluding by saying that Kuwait was keen to preserve the “distinguished fraternal relations between the two brotherly countries and continue to coordinate with the brothers to resolve all pending issues.”