In July 1913, a draft treaty was created by the
Ottoman Empire and the
United Kingdom in which Warbah Island was included in the territory of the
Emirate of Kuwait. The treaty was not ratified due to the outbreak of
World War I. In 1951,
Iraq offered to accept the 1951 border agreement on the condition that Warbah Island be given to them. Kuwait rejected this, and Iraq withdrew the offer in 1953. In 1956, the British proposed that Kuwait give up Warbah Island in exchange for water supply from Iraq, but Kuwait rejected this. Iraq claimed the island in the 1970s and 1980s. In November 1994, Iraq formally accepted the UN-demarcated
border with Kuwait which had been spelled out in
Security Council Resolutions
687 (1991),
773 (1993), and
833 (1993) which formally ended Iraq's earlier claim to Warbah Island. In December 2002, near the island, in the lead-up to the
invasion of Iraq, an Iraqi ship opened fire on two Kuwaiti coastguard patrol boats, causing them to collide. A
US serviceman and two Kuwaiti coastguards were injured in the attack. No mention was made of the reason for the US serviceman's presence on a Kuwaiti vessel. The island has no permanent inhabitants. Kuwait maintains a coastguard post, named
M-1 on the island which is partially funded by the
United Nations. ==References==