This publication provides a sequence of key documents selected from the enormous amount of archive material relating to the Buraimi dispute. While most of the publication is organised around the development and aftermath of the armed crisis in 1955, the first volume provides historical background up to 1949.
The documents convey the complexity of regional and tribal affairs and the cumulative strain of territorial claims and provocations. The documents show how over a period of years the British and Saudis developed irreconcilable positions and how the various attempts at settlement, including the Dammam Conference and the Arbitration Tribunal, rapidly became likely to fail.
On a wider front the records show how the commercial interests of Aramco became entangled with American foreign policy and how the determination of the British to maintain their earlier level of influence led to the alienation of US support. With hindsight the Buraimi affair can be seen in conjunction with the Suez crisis as a point of re-alignment of British relations both with the Americans and with the Arab world.
The Buraimi dispute was apparently settled in 1974 when Saudi Arabia ceded, or at least relaxed, its claim in favour of Abu Dhabi in return for territorial concessions elsewhere; although the agreement has not been published.
The Buraimi Dispute: contemporary documents provides scholars and researchers with the detailed primary materials required for an understanding of the origins and escalation of the Buraimi crisis, as well as of the following years of international diplomatic repercussions involving the Arab League and the United Nations, the roles of the UK and the US and the evolving relationships of Abu Dhabi, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

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