page_title: Iran–Iraq border
section_title: Colonial and independent Iraq (1920-present)
hierarchical_section_title: Iran–Iraq border / History / Colonial and independent Iraq (1920-present)
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Karte Frontverläufe im ersten Golfkrieg English: Map of the frontlines in the Iran-Iraq War
context_page_description: The Iran–Iraq border runs for 1,599 km from the tripoint with Turkey in the north down to the Shatt al-Arab waterway and out to the Persian Gulf in the south. Although the boundary was first determined in 1639, certain disputes continue, particularly surrounding navigation on the Shatt al-Arab.
context_section_description: During the First World War an Arab Revolt, supported by Britain, succeeded in removing the Ottomans from most of the Middle East. As a result of the secret 1916 Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement Britain gained control of the Ottoman Vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, which it organised into the mandate of Iraq in 1920. The former Ottoman-Iran boundary was retained, now forming the borders between Iran and Iraq, and also Iran and the new Republic of Turkey established in 1923. Iraq later gained independence in 1932.
  The border was challenged by Iran in 1934 at the League of Nations, with the validity of both the Treaty of Erzurum and the Constantinople Protocol being called into question. The dispute was resolved in 1937, following the general lines of the old boundary, with the exception of the area immediately around the Iranian town of Abadan, where the boundary was moved from the east bank to the thalweg, as had been done around Khorramshahr two decades earlier.
  While that resolved Iran's major grievances, it failed to respond to the issue of freedom of navigation in the Shatt al-Arab. The issue rumbled on in the following decades, with Iraq adopting a more assertive foreign policy in the 1970s following the rise of Saddam Hussein. In 1969 Iran abrogated the 1937 treaty, resulting in the 1974–75 Shatt al-Arab clashes with Iraq on the Shatt al-Arab. In retaliation Iraq supported Arab separatists in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province, with Iran supporting Kurdish rebels in Iraq. A peace agreement was signed on 6 March 1975 in Algiers in which both parties pledged to further demarcate the border, both on land and in the Shatt al-Arab, based upon the Ezurum Treaty and Constantinople Protocol. A further treaty was signed in Baghdad that year, confirming the Algiers provisions, along with maps marking the border.
  Relations soured once again in 1979, as Saddam Hussein formally took office and the Shah of Iran was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution and replaced by a Shi'ite theocracy under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. War broke out in 1980 when Iraq invaded Iran, leading to the eight-year long Iran-Iraq War. Almost the entire ground war was fought in close proximity to the international boundary, though the conflict resulted in stalemate and following the end of fighting no changes to the border were made. Relations were restored in 1990 and have improved substantially since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
caption: Map showing the major areas of fighting during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88)
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