CONFIDENTIAL (1272) ED IN IN British Residency, BAHRAIN May 15, 1958. I enclose a copy of a letter from Chauncy at Muscat covering a copy of a letter from the Muscat Minister of Foreign Affairs requesting information about the territorial waters of States near to Muscat. 2. This request results from an enquiry by the Italian Consul in Aden who had previously, in September 1957, asked the Aden Secretariat for the information mentioned in the first paragraph of Innes' letter of April 8. 3. Aden passed on this enquiry to iviuscat Consulate-General asking for material on which to base their reply to the Consul and Muscat referred to us for guidance in the matter. We informed Muscat of the many complexities of this subject and explained that it would greatly embarrass Her Majesty's Government if Muscat were to claim territorial waters in excess of three miles. We informed muscat that the United Nations had been concerning themselves with these waters and that our basic position has always been that a belt of territorial waters should extend to three miles from low water mark; islands off the coast carry their own belt of territorial waters. When bays and inlets narrow to less than ten miles across, a "closing line" is drawn between the first points at which the width reaches ten miles and the limit of territorial waters is drawn three miles to seaward of this. (Following the failure of the recent Geneva conference Her Majesty's Government's position remains unchanged.2 4. We also advised the Consul-General that the problems of contiguous waters and the delimitation of the continental shelf were even more difficult and that the Italians should not be given any precise definition on these matters. The Consulate-General doubted whether the Sultanate had ever given any thought to these matters and replied to the Aden Secretariat in this vein, adding that the Sultanate probably regard the usual three miles as their territorial waters. Muscat added that if the Italian authorities wished to pursue the matter they should write direct to the Sultan at Muscat. In the meantime Chauncy had discussed the whole subject at some length with the Sultan and considered that the latter would not be disposed to be drawn into any more elaborate reply ( if he replied at all) to the Italians should they refer to him, than that given by us, and we were content to leave it at that. The Italian Consul has now returned to the charge. 5. The whole question of the width of territorial waters and contiguous zones is obviously now a most complex, delicate and touchy one in view of the inconclusive end of the International Conference on the Law of the Sea at Geneva. t A. R. Walmsley, Esq., M.B.E. Eastern Department, Foreign Office, LONDON, s.w.l. CONFIDENTIAL
