Coll 28/67 ‘Persia. Annual Reports, 1932–’ [‎308ar] (617/644)

obligations, but added! a sinister note by including among them the Soviet-
Persian Treaty of 1921, which they claimed gave them the right to introduce
troops into Persia.
26. The position then at the end of the year was that British troops left
in Persia were limited to small detachments in Andimeshk, Ahwaz, Abadan
and Khorramshahr to protect the oil area and in Task to protect the aerodrome.
The Russians continued to have about 60,000 troops in the provinces of Azer-
^ baijan, Qazvin, Gilan, Mazandaran and Khorassan, and to control the railway
f from Firuzkuh to Bandar Shah, on the Caspian. The Americans had executed
their declared intention of withdrawing their troops by the 1st January, except
for 500 men, hurriedly put into mufti, who were operating the American air
field at Abadan. It was beginning to look, therefore, as if the Russians were
going to choose the less welcome alternative of the two foreshadowed by the
Foreign Office on the 10th July. His Majesty's Government’s tactics, however,
had already forced the Soviet Government to unmask itself to some extent. In
an obviously inspired article on the 14th December, Prayda affirmed the right
of the Soviet Union under the treaty of 1921 to bring its troops into Persia.
Pravda went on to ask what right, on the other hand, had the British to bring
their troops into Persia in 1941 before the Anglo-Soviet-Persian treaty of 1942
was signed (possibly a pertinent question, but an indecent one for a Russian to
ask, seeing that we invaded Persia, by agreement with Russia and mainly to
establish a supplv route to Russia). Pravda concluded by querying the presence
of British troops in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Indonesia,
Belgium, France, Holland, Denmark, and Norway, and of American troops in
Persia, Egypt and China. The Russians had, therefore, already been driven
back onto the weakest of all arguments, the tu quoque.
Russian interest in Aerodromes and roads in East Persia.
27. Paragraph 35 of this embassy’s Political Review for 1944 reads as
follows :—
“ There is one aspect of British activities in Persia which may have
given the Russians reasonable cause for suspicion. The aerodromes at
Mirjawa and Zahidan were completed at a time when, as a result of the
discontinuance of the East Persia supply route, they were no longer needed
for military aid to Russia; and work on the aerodrome at Kerman was still
continuing at the end of the year. The Zahidan-Kerman and Zahidan-
Meshed roads are still being maintained, though they too are no longer needed
for sending supplies to the Soviet Union. It seems that the work begun
on the aerodromes when the Germans were in the Caucasus was continued
with a view to their eventual use as communication airfields on what is,
in fact, the most direct route between India and Europe. The Meshed road
has been kept up as a potential route for aid to China through Soviet
Central Asia, and the Kerman road is being maintained in connexion with
the work proceeding on the airfield at Kerman. A visit to South-East
Persia late in the year by the Soviet military attache suggests that the
Russians are not without interest in these activities.
28. Work on the Kerman aerodrome continued through the first half of
1945 (though in a more desultory fashion), and it was being maintained until
the British military authorities handed it over to the Persians in December.
The Zahidan-Kerman road was also maintained until it was handed over at
the same time as the aerodrome. 4he Zahidan—Meshed road likewise continued
to be maintained until it was handed over to the Persians in October, although
the Burma road had been opened early in the year, thus rendering the
maintenance of the Meshed road for potential aid to China superfluous.
29. Russian military and civilian officials continued to show great interest
in our military activities in East Persia and it is possible that the latter may
have contributed to Russian suspicions of our intentions and to their violent
activity in Azerbaijan at the end of the year. The Zahidan—Meshed road was
originally built by the British in the last war and was the sine qua non for the
subsequent British advance to Merv. When we reconditioned it in 1942, the
Soviet Consul-General in Meshed was openly sceptical that it was intended
merely for aid to Russia. Again, the continued construction of the Mirjawa,
Zahidan and Kerman aerodromes for two years after the passing of the
emergency for which they were intended, namely, a German break through the
Caucasus, may well have remind^ed the Russians of how we swept forw ard to