Form value not submitting for a function called from ajax
Your mistake is a misconception about AJAX callback function. In Drupal, all permanent changes to a form needs to be done in form creation function, in your case iks_beaches_create. Function pointed in ['#ajax']['callback'] has the only purpose to determine what part of form is supposed to be updated. It can change $form, but these changes are one-time only, and preparing form to save values counts as a second time. Move all your form assembly logic to iks_beaches_create, so you could trim callback to

function countryDisplay($form, &amp;$form_state){
  return  $form['countryDisplay'];
}


and it will work.