| 1974–1975 Arvand River conflict | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theArvand River dispute and theSecond Iraqi–Kurdish War | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Iran KDP |  Iraq | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Mustafa Barzani | Saddam Hussein (Vice President of Iraq) | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
1,000+ killed or wounded (total)[7] | |||||||||
The1974–1975 Shatt al-Arab conflict consisted of armed cross-border clashes betweenIran andIraq. It was a major escalation of theShatt al-Arab dispute, which had begun in 1936 due to opposing territorial claims by both countries over theShatt al-Arab, a transboundary river that runs partly along theIran–Iraq border. The conflict took place between April 1974 and March 1975, and resulted in over 1,000 total casualties for both sides combined, though the Iranians eventually came to hold a strategic advantage over the Iraqis. Open hostilities formally came to an end with the1975 Algiers Agreement, in which Iraq ceded around half of the border area containing the waterway in exchange for Iran's cessation of support forIraqi Kurdish rebels.
Qajar Iran hadrepudiated the demarcation line established in thePersian Gulf by theAnglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913, and argued that theIran–Iraq border in theShatt al-Arab should be demarcated according to thethalweg principle. In 1934, theHashemite Kingdom of Iraq, encouraged by theUnited Kingdom, tookPahlavi Iran to theLeague of Nations, but the dispute was not resolved. In 1937, Iran and Iraq signed their first official boundary treaty, which established the waterway border on the eastern bank of the river and excluded a four-mile anchorage zone nearAbadan—which was allotted to Iran—where the border ran along the thalweg. In 1958, Iraq'sHashemite monarchy was overthrown in acoup d'état known as the14 July Revolution, which established theFirst Iraqi Republic. In 1968, another coup d'état—staged by theArab Socialist Ba'ath Party and known as the17 July Revolution—deposed the First Iraqi Republic and firmly established aBa'athist regime in Iraq. Shortly afterwards, Iran sent a delegation of diplomats to Iraq in 1969, and when the erstwhile Iraqi government refused to proceed with negotiations over a new treaty, Iran withdrew the treaty of 1937. The Iranian abrogation of the 1937 treaty marked the beginning of a period of acute tension inIran–Iraq relations. In 1973, a raid on the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan uncovered large-scale covert Iraqi involvement in the supply of weapons and funds to militants wagingan insurgency againstIran and Pakistan inBalochistan, further heightening the tensions between Iran and Iraq. This period of tensions lasted until the1975 Algiers Agreement.[8]
From March 1974 to March 1975,Iran andIraq fought border skirmishes sparked over Iran's support ofIraqi Kurds, who were engaged in an insurgency against theArab-majority Iraqi state forsecession and the establishment of an independentKurdish state.[9][10] In 1975, the Iraqis launched a small military incursion into Iran, spearheaded withtank columns; this incursion was defeated by the Iranians,[11] after which several other attacks took place. However, Iran had the world's fifth-largest military at the time and promptly defeated theIraqi military with itsair power, while continuing to frustrate the Iraqis domestically with its arming ofKurdish separatists alongside its erstwhile close allies: theUnited States andIsrael. Some 1,000 people died as a result of the 1974–75 conflict around theShatt al-Arab, and Iraq was ultimately unable to gain any advantage against Iran.[12]
Consequently, Iraq decided against continuing the conflict, and chose instead to makeconcessions to Iran to end the Kurdish rebellion.[9][10] In the1975 Algiers Agreement, Iraq made territorial concessions—including the Shatt al-Arab waterway—in exchange for normalized bilateral relations.[9] In return for Iraq recognizing that the frontier on the waterway ran along the entirethalweg as per Iran's argument, the latter ended its support for Iraqi Kurdishguerrillas.[9][13][14]
On 17 September 1980, Iraq abrogated the1975 Algiers Agreement afterIranian forces shelled a number of Iraqi border posts on 4 September following the1979 Iranian Revolution, which overthrew theShah and established anIslamic theocracy.[15]Iraqi PresidentSaddam Hussein claimed that the newly-establishedIslamic Republic of Iran had refused to abide by the stipulations of the Algiers Accords and Iraq therefore considered them null and void. Tensions began to run high between the two states as Iraq's rulingBa'ath Party feared thatRuhollah Khomeini was attempting toexport the Iranian Revolution to Iraq by inciting the latter'sShia-majority population intorevolting against thesecular andArab nationalist government. Five days later, theIraqi military launched a major offensive andinvaded Iran, sparking theIran–Iraq War.[16]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)30°24′26″N48°09′06″E / 30.40722°N 48.15167°E /30.40722; 48.15167
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