'File No. II/8 Foreign Dept Memoranda of Information re. affairs in Turkish Arabia. Nov '07 --' [‎25r] (49/110)

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7.
Attack on Mr. D.
Fraser* 4 , Times of India
Correspondent” near
Ur fa in the Mosul
Vilayet.
TURKISH ARABIA A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. .
6. On the 13th January, the Political
Appointment of a Vice- Resident in Turkish
Consul at Mosul. Arabia reported that
he had heard from the Embassy that Mr.
Young, the Vice-Consul for Mosul, would
probably take up his duties about the middle of
February.
On the 7th January, the Political
Resident in Turk ; sh
Arabia reported to His
Majesty’s Ambassador
at Constantinople that
he had received a telegram from Dr. Fischer,
a German at Urfa, to the effect that Mr. D.
Fraser, a “Times of India” Correspondent,
had been robbed and seriously wounded by an
Arab at a place near Urfa in the Mosul
Vilayet. The Resident was in correspondence
with the Vali and the British Consular Agent
there on the subject.
8. (Vide para. 2U, December 1907.)
On the 27th November,
Baghdad Railway. g- r ^ O’Conor re
ported to Sir E. Grey that the contract
between the Ottoman Government and the
Anatolian Railway Co. for the irrigation of
the plain of Konia (vide para. 189, October
1907), had been signed, the cost of the work
having been fixed at 19,500,000 fr. to be
advanced by the Company and paid off by the
Government in 35 years, with 5 per cent in
terest by yearly instalments. It was stated
that of these instalments, £ T. 25,000 was to
be paid in cash, guaranteed on the tithes
of the reclaimed land, and the balance
(£ T. 10,000) was to he represented by the
freight of the produce of the district concerned,
which was no longer to count as part
of the revenue of the railway, and would be
made good by the kilometric guarantee. If
these receipts did not suffice, the Ottoman
Government would make up the deficit from
some other source, and if they more than
sufficed the balance would go to them.
9. (Vide para. 201, November 1907.)
On the 11th November,
Yemen affairs the Acting British
Consul at Jeddah reported the return to
Mecca of the Ulemas sent to the Imam of
the Yemen by tho authorities of Hedjaz. As
the Imam had refused to receive the deput
ation, it did not go beyond Sanaa, from which
place a letter had been sent to the Imam
exhorting him to resist from further hostilities
and to submit to the authority of the Turkish
Government. It was stated that in reply the
Imam blamed the Turkish officials, notably
Ahmad Faizi Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. for the recent troubles,
and declared that there could he no peace in
the Yemen until the demands submitted to the
Sultan by him had been accepted.