AL-BEDAEA, 12 July 2004 — Saudi Arabia yesterday handed over to Yemen a military airport and two border guard centers area on the Kingdom’s southeastern border which were designated Yemeni territory under a 2000 treaty.
In the hand-over ceremony at the Al-Bedaea airport, some 770 kilometers northeast of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, Saudi and Yemeni chiefs of general staff Lt. Gen. Saleh ibn Ali Al-Muhayya and Brig. Gen. Muhammad Al-Qassimi signed the turnover documents.
As the two officials exchanged the documents, Saudi and Yemeni soldiers lowered the Saudi flag at the site and hoisted the Yemeni flag.
The three sites were among 13 locations that will be turned over to Yemenis in the coming three days under the Jeddah treaty, Yemeni and Saudi officials said during the ceremony.
But officials would not tell Arab News whether the Kingdom will in return gain territory from Yemen.
Speaking at the ceremony, Al-Muhayya said turning over the territory highlighted “the deep-rooted relations between the two brotherly countries.”
“Geographic borders are only lines that illustrate limits of the administrative authorities of the two countries,” he said, adding: “We have the same religion, the same language and the same origins.”
The hand-over is in line with a border treaty signed by the two countries in Jeddah on June 12, 2000 ending a 66-year-old border dispute.
Demarcation of the Kingdom’s 1,845-kilometer border with Yemen was completed in May after 824 markers were put in place. Yemeni officials have said that a German company demarcating the border would complete drawing up border maps by June next year.
Political and economic ties between the Kingdom and Yemen have been developing since the two countries signed the Jeddah treaty.
Riyadh and Sanaa are also working closely to combat cross-border drug and arms smuggling and infiltration of terrorists. Large quantities of arms and explosives are smuggled through the porous border from Yemen every year.
