Oman and the United
Arab Emirates
The UAE-Oman relationship has been marked by
tremendous changes and rapid developments. During the past three decades,
unresolved boundary disputes have not hindered the two countries’ quest for
greater economic cooperation, which eventually led to a better relationship.
The 1999 UAE-Oman border pact distinguished itself in one
specific aspect: the
two countries enhanced their socioeconomic relations exponentially. The accord
opened the door for cooperation in the fields of trade, tourism, investment and
other areas.49 The UAE investment in Oman reached very high levels, with
almost $5 billion invested in the last three decades.
A boundary agreement reportedly signed
and ratified with UAE in 2003 for entire border, including Oman's Musandam
Peninsula and Al Madhah exclave, but details of the alignment have not been
made public (i.e. contents of the agreement and detailed maps showing the
alignment have not been published).
Historical Background
In the second half of the 1940s, two major political changes
took place in the Arab Gulf region.
The first was the transfer of Britain’s
Political Residency headquarters from Bushire on the Persian side of the Gulf
to Bahrain on the Arab side. This transfer resulted
in the severing of London’s longstanding connection
with Persia, marking the renewed importance of the Arab Gulf emirates.
The
second was the transfer on April 1, 1949, of responsibility for the Political
Residency from the government of India to the Foreign Office in London. This
marked a new British attitude towards the lower Gulf.
Until the 1930s, because of specific agreements
with several rulers, the British refrained from interfering in the internal
affairs of what were called the Trucial Sheikhdoms, so long as the peace at sea
was kept.
British attitudes towards the Sultanate of
Oman, on the other hand, were sharply different. Omani “independence” had been
ensured after Britain and France undertook to respect a sovereign Sultanate in
1892.
Equally important, the British perceived their
relationship with the sultan as a useful counterbalance to their various
“relationships” elsewhere in the region. Indeed, London persuaded successive
sultans to greet nascent emirates with less than full support, if not outright hostility. In
part as a result of this legacy, and in part because
of its own imperial history, Omani perceptions of the emirates before 1971,
and the UAE after, have resulted in
incident-prone ties.
Between 1952 and 1999, the UAE-Oman
relationship went through four distinct phases: 1952-71, tense relations
dominated by the Buraimi crisis; 1971-79, political thaw; 1979-99, more relaxed
political and economic exchanges; post-May 1999, a far more optimistic outlook,
provided various actors abandoned past suspicions.
The UAE and Oman:
Opportunities and Challenges
CIA’s World Factbook
Oman and UAE: Comparisson Chart
Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @London1701
22nd November 2018
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