ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on factual account of the role of politico-geographical factors in the evolution of the present Iraq Iran boundary. Occasionally Iran demands the shifting to midstream of the estuarine frontier, the Shatt-al Arab, the only outlet to the open sea of land-locked Iraq. International co-operation in the making of this frontier, despite strong antagonism between the two great powers, gave stability for the first time in four centuries to both Iraq and Iran, the former having succeeded in this region to the then Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans claimed that the annexation by Persia of Armenia, the Caucasus, Kurdistan and Iraq was a violation of their eastern frontiers. Two more treaties following hostilities ending to Persia's advantage were concluded in 1613 and 1618. In 1639, after the re-capture of Baghdad and its district by the Ottomans, the first Treaty of Peace and Demarcation of Frontiers Boundary treaties are italicized. Between the two empires was signed at Zohab.
