Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913 have to accept Ottoman suzerainty, and in return, the northern islands of Warba and Bubiyan must be allocated to Kuwait, and so forth. The waning influence of Istanbul in the Gulf forced it to make concessions without much to gain in return. The Ottoman Empire had faced a number of setbacks in the last few decades—a few of its provinces achieved independence, some were annexed by other countries, or many lost in conflict—and for internal political reasons it may have seemed important to maintain Kuwait as part of the empire, even if only symbolically. The Ottomans also felt that making
Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913 intervene in matters of the Gulf, of which the British desired to retain a monopoly. The Ottomans were willing to drop all claims to Bahrain, in which they had never been able to maintain anything but a symbolic role, but not Qatar. As a question of sovereignty, the Ottomans argued that the empire had always exercised effective sovereignty over the peninsula and could not justify the abandonment of territory which it had never formally renounced. Yet under considerable pressure it renounced claims to both (Articles 11 & 13) and a blue line was established to define the territorial limits of