The Iraqi-Syrian Dispute over The Waters of The Euphrates and Saudi Mediation 1975

The paper examines the role of Saudi Arabia in its mediation to resolve the dispute that raged around the Euphrates River between Iraq and Syria in 1975 after the mediation of the League of Arab States failed to reconcile the two sides. This prompted King Khalid bin Abdul Aziz to announce his mediation and assign a personal envoy to be a mediator between the Iraqi and Syrian sides, Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources in the country. The meetings of the Saudi mediator in Riyadh and Jeddah were three sessions in which the delegations of the two countries explained their views on the dispute, which ended in failure. This stimulated King Khalid's intervention to persuade the Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to resolve the crisis and pump additional quantities of water into the Iraqi territory that suffered drought, lack of drinking water, and the migration of farmers to cities.