1 Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations 1
Notes 1 Overview of Saudi–Iranian Relations 1. Saudi Arabia and Iran share at least three joint oilfields, each known by its Persian or Arabic name, respectively: Esfandiar/Al Louloua, Foroozan/Marjan, and Farzad/Hasbah. Arash/Al Dorrah is shared between Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The three states have yet to reach an agreement over the demarca- tion of the maritime boundary in the northern Persian Gulf that affects the field. Iran’s share of the Esfandiar and Foroozan fields has dropped to levels that make their further development uneconomic, in part due to Saudi ability to extract faster from the fields. Saudi Arabia and Iran signed an agreement to develop the Farzad/Hasbah A gas field in January 2012, and were scheduled to sign a second agreement to develop the Farzad B gas field and Arash/Al Dorrah oilfield, pend- ing the removal of international sanctions against Iran. In 2014, they contested their respective shares in the Arash/Al Dorrah. 2 . British administration in the Persian Gulf began in 1622, when the British fleet helped the Persian Safavid king, Shah Abbas, expel the Portuguese from Hormuz island. The period of the British Residency of the Persian Gulf as an official colonial subdivision extended from 1763 to 1971. 3 . Interview with Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of Gulf Research Center, Riyadh, November 30, 2011. 4 . Alinaqi Alikhani, yad dasht ha-yi asaddollah alam , jeld shesh, 1355–1356 [The Diaries of Alam], vol. 6, 1975–1976 (tehran: entesharat maziar va moin, 1377), pp. 324–325; 464. When the shah insists that the United States should under- stand that it cannot make Iran “a slave [puppet] government,” Alam informs him that the Americans have tried to make contact with different groups in Iranian society—alluding to dissidents.
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