By Amer al-Hassani

BAGHDAD

Hundreds protested in Iraq’s southern Basra province this week against a 2013 maritime deal -- signed under Iraq’s previous government -- ceding Iraq’s Khawr Abdullah Canal to Kuwait.

"The canal is Iraqi," protestors shouted. "We will not relinquish it to Kuwait".

On Tuesday, demonstrators marched towards the canal from Basra’s provincial council building, where they called on the government to cancel the deal, which was signed in 2013 by Iraq’s then prime minister -- and current vice-president -- Nuri al-Maliki.

Located between Iraq’s Al-Faw Peninsula and the Kuwaiti island of Bubiyan, the canal is now an estuary. Once, however, it had been the point where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers emptied into the Persian Gulf.

The canal deal was initially signed within the framework of an international agreement to demarcate the borders between Iraq and Kuwait.

Although it was signed four years ago, the deal came back into the spotlight last week after the Iraqi cabinet began allocating funds for its implementation.