File 4880/1913 Pt 2 'Turco-Persian Frontier Commission: protocol of 1913' [‎271r] (409/499)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
ASTATIC TURKEY AND ARABIA.
.
[June 6.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
I q i ~“z Section 4.
[20331]
No. 1.
Sir Edward Grey to Sir G. Lowther.
(No. 173.)
Sir, Foreign Office, June 6, 1913.
WITH reference to your Excellency’s despatch No. 360 of the 29th April, I transmit
to you a copy of a minute by Mr. Malkin, acting assistant legal adviser, respecting the
proposed transfer to Turkey of the territory now de facto administered by Persia in the
vicinity of Zohab.
I also transmit to your Excellency a copy of the Persian concession granted to
Mr. D’Arcy in 1901.
I agree with Mr. Malkin that in the agreement by which the frontier is defined the
transaction should appear as a cession by Persia to Turkey of the territory in question,
and your Excellency should aim at securing this object.
The draft of an article to this effect will be forwarded to your Excellency
forthwith, and, after discussion with your Russian colleague, you should seek to have a
French version of the draft article embodied in the final agreement.
I am, &c.
E. GREY.
Enclosure 1 in No. 1 .
Minute by Mr. Malkin,
I HAD a long conversation with Mr. Greenway as to the provisions to be inserted
in the treaty with the object of protecting the interests of the Anglo-Persian Oil
Company in the transferred territory.
The object is—
(a.) To secure that Turkey will recognise and respect the rights of the company
under their concession.
( 6 .) To prevent the Anatolian Railway from claiming that their alleged exclusive
rights in the vilayets of Mosul and Bagdad exclude the Anglo-Persian Company from
making their concession in the transferred territory.
(a) can easily be provided for ; as to ( 6 ), please see the minutes on 33824/12 and
35252/12, and our despatch No. 405 to Constantinople of the 29th August, 1912. It
would, I think, be necessary for the Anatolian Railway, in order to establish their case,
to argue that the transferred territory formed part of the vilayets of Mosul and Bagdad
at the time when their concession was granted. It would therefore considerably
strengthen our position if in the agreement by which the frontier is defined the
transaction should appear as a cession by Persia to Turkey of the territory in question,
and not as a recognition by Persia of Turkey’s rights to it; and I would suggest that
this course should be adopted.
I have always understood from the papers I have seen and the conversations I
have had on the subject that the arrangement proposed was that, as regards the
transferred territory, Turkey should step into the shoes of Persia, recognising her
obligations to allow to the company the rights granted to it under the concession by
Persia, and being similarly entitled to the benefits thereby reserved to Persia (see the
last three paragraphs of our despatch No. 405 to Constantinople of the 29th August
last, referred to in our telegram No. 192 of the 21 st April), and this seems to me by
far the most convenient and safest course. When, however, I mentioned this to
Mr. Greenway he said that this was not the arrangement he had made with Sir L.
Mallet, which was that the position of his company should remain unchanged in the
transferred territory. I asked him to explain a little more what he meant, and, after
some discussion and reference to the provisions of the concession, it became apparent
that, in effect, what he wanted was that Turkey should confirm to the company all its
rights in the transferred territory (including, e.g., the freedom from dues under article 7)
and get none of the benefits, which should continue to go to Persia. I pointed out that
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