File 160/1903 'Persian Gulf: El Katr; appointment of Turkish Mudirs; question of Protectorate Treaty with El Katr' [‎330r] (664/860)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
PEE^A. AND ARABIA.
■^CONFIDENTIAL.
[March 20.]
Section 1.
No. 1.
Sir N. O’Conor to the Marquess of Lansdoivne.—[Received March 20.)
(No. 135.)
My Lord, Constantinople, March 14, 1903.
SINCE the receipt of your Lordship’s despatch No. 54 of the 20th ultimo I have
learnt from Mr. Wratislaw, in answer to my inquiries, that Mudirs, or Sub-Governors,
have been sent to Zobara, Odeid, Wakra, and Amair, or Abu Ali Island.
This information is partly confirmed by your Lordship’s telegram No. 53 of
yesterday, which, moreover, authorizes me to make a communication to the Sublime
Porte in the sense of the instructions contained in your above-mentioned despatch.
I trust 1 shall have your Lordship’s approval in refraining from raising a fresh
contentious discussion on the eve of a Ministerial Council, which there is reason to
expect will come to a favourable decision in regard to the Aden frontier; and also in
confining my representations for the moment, and until your Lordship has received this
despatch and considered the remarks which I feel bound to offer, to warning the Sublime
Porte against any administrative or other measures affecting the status quo.
The question of Turkish sovereignty over the hi Kabi promontory has, as your
Lordship is aware and will see from the accompanying Memorandum, been repeatedly
the subject of discussion with the Porte, and I am not without hope of succeeding
in dissuading them from proceeding with the appointments of Sub-Governors, on the
ground that any disturbance of the status quo is impolitic, without having to do more
than to remind them of the declarations made by His Majesty’s Government on this
subject on previous occasions.
I confess I see strong objections to basing our representations on the fact that we
do not recognize Turkish sovereignty over this coast, as its immediate result will be to
provoke the Ottoman Government to reassert, in the most formal and official manner,
their claim, as happened in 1891-92 (see Memorandum) ; and if we allow their pieten-
sions to pass with nothing more than a verbal or WTitten contradiction, we shall lather
have weakened than strengthened our present position. If, on the other hand, we are
not satisfied with merely disclaiming their pretended rights, and the Poite persist in
their intentions, we shall be forced to take some definite action which may lead His
Majesty’s Government further than they intend, or further than it is necessary or politic
to go at present. Ac any rate, before taking a step which may raise a very vexed and
complicated question, it will, I venture to think, obviously be advisable to decide befoie-
hand whether His Majesty’s Government will forcibly prevent the Ottoman Government
from establishing anv new outward symbols of Turkish sovereignty along the whole west
coast of the Persian*Gulf to El Katif, and, if so, what will be their policy and action m
regard to the Turkish military station at El Bidaa, which undoubtedly exists and has
existed for many years. . , , u
• It may safely be said that at the present moment Ottoman sovereignty over the
whole of Arabia is, at the best, a very slender one, and that, in the gradual process of
disintegration, which is proceeding pretty rapidly, it will become less and less. s it,
under these circumstances, in accordance with British interests to hasten this disiuption,
or even to over-weaken Turkish rule until we have some other put in its place ? It
may be that, in the present instance, His Majesty’s Government is prepared, atter the
death of the ruling Chief of Katr, to recognize his brother, Ahmed-bm-Iham, amt
profit by his friendly disposition to conclude with him some Agreement on the lines of
those with the Trucial Chiefs, which, will give us a sort of Protectorate or lien over
the promontory ; but until this day arrives it is not clear to me that we gam anything
by formally raising, without absolute necessity, the question of Iurkish-sovereignty,
such as it is I do, however, think it very possible that, by doing so, and by overtly
pursuing a policy which, rightly or wrongly, is considered as directed against the
integrity of the Ottoman Empire, we encourage another Power to some act of rank
aggression which will precipitate developments, and possibly place us before very long in
a serious and grave predicament. t , „ t o - c i
There is no doubt that our action m regard to Ivoweit has made a very painful
impression upon not only the Sultan, but upon many of his Anglophil subjects, whose
[1863 u—l]