Manama: Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have presented a complaint to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon regarding repeated transgressions and assaults committed by Iranian military boats in the waters of the submerged area adjacent to the area divided between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The Permanent Missions of Saudi Arabia and the State of Kuwait to the UN, in the complaint submitted on Tuesday, informed Ban of the Iranian assaults over the waters of the Divided Submerged Area, upon which the two Gulf countries have exclusive sovereign rights to explore and benefit from its natural wealth, Kuwait News Agency (Kuna) reported.

According to the document, the last incident of the infringements was committed by one vessel and two armed speedboats displaying the Iranian flag.

Each boat had three armed individuals on-board during infringement that took place at 1.35pm on April 20. Another infringement of an Iranian Hendijan 1401 vessel took place at 7.32am on April 21.

These two vessels and two boats approached the Al Dorra well No. 3 (D3) in the Al Dorra field (coordinations 63 58 28 North & 16 06 49 East) inside the Saudi-Kuwaiti submerged divided zone, which may lead to confrontations that threaten peace and security in this region, the joint document noted.

It is known that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Kuwait solely have exclusive rights to explore and benefit from the hydrocarbon wealth in the Al Dorra field and the divided submerged area.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait express “their deep demurral and dissatisfaction about these repeated assaults and transgressions and demand from the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to stop these transgressions and assaults in order to preserve their interests,” Kuna reported.

The document also called for the start of negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as one party and Iran as the other party to determine maritime delimitation separating the waters of the divided submerged area and the waters of the Iran in accordance with the provisions of international law.

However, neither Saudi Arabia nor Kuwait received any response from Iran despite their repeated calls for negotiations to determine these borders.