Papers of the Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs [‎95r] (189/290)

3
[1552] B 2
*
$
position that no humanitarian or political considerations would
induce His Majesty’s Government to undertake the responsibility of
administering or in any way mixing themselves lip with the political
future of the Marches of Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. .
Yet another complication was introduced by the question of the
Nestorian Christians. He had recently interviewed the capable lady
who had been sent home by the Mesopotamian authorities to put
forward their case. Her idea was that this community should, when
repatriated, be allowed to settle down in the neighbourhood of
Amadia, where they would be ready to protect themselves if they
were furnished with a certain amount of material support in the way
of arms, &c. As matters stood at present, we were entertaining
from 40,000 to 50,000 Nestorian and Armenian refugees in the
camp at Baqubah, at a cost of over 2,000,000Z. a year. This could
not go on indefinitely, and it was probable that an appeal would
have to be made to the generosity of the world ; but in any
discussion of the frontiers of Mesopotamia or Kurdistan, the
possibility of a nucleus of friendly Christian elements acting as a
wedoe or block between Northern and Southern Kurdistan should
not be overlooked.
The last point to be considered was the railway question. In
the course of our military operations in Mesopotamia, we had been
drawn into Southern Kurdistan, and an Assistant Political
Officer had been posted at Suleimaniyeh. Having occupied the
country, the military authorities had represented that the railway was
necessary for the supply of troops. After considerable discussion,
the Conference had sanctioned the continuance of the work on the
Kifri-Kirkuk railway. At the same time he had been seriously
alarmed—and the Secretary of State for India had shared his
apprehension—at the prospect of our becoming involved with the
hill tribes, and of a situation arising analogous to that on the north
west frontier of India. The decision at which the Conference had,
perhaps unwisely, arrived had been prompted by the argument that
access must be provided to Mosul which would almost certainly be
included in the future Mesopotamia under a British mandate. The
commercial and administrative advantages of the Kifri-Kirkuk
alignment had been strongly emphasised, but he had since been
informed that, in the opinion of certain competent authorities, the
river-line, which had now reached Shergat—about seventy miles
short of Mosul—was quite good enough for commercial purposes.
He had also received a letter from the Chancellor of the
Exchequer in which it was pointed out that it was quite impossible
for His Majesty’s Government to consent to continued capital
expenditure on railways in Mesopotamia.
This was a brief outline of the situation as he saw it. He
begged the Conference to remember as a guiding principle in the
ensuing discussion that we wished to draw in, not to stretch out, our
tentacles and to confine ourselves within the narrowest possible
limits. His own inclination was to cut out Kurdistan altogether
from Mesopotamia, and to draw a boundary line just clear of Mosul
which should include the plains in Mesopotamia and leave the
mountains to Kurdistan.
Mr. Montagu said that he was in entire agreement with every-
thing that the Chairman had said, but he would like to say that the
policy of leaving Kurdistan and Armenia alone was, in his opinion,
dependent on our success in keeping the Turk out. this was a large
question which would no doubt form part of the discussion on the
peace settlement with Turkey. What he was anxious to fix was a
eonvenient frontier for Mesopotamia. 1 here appeared to him to be
two possible alternatives—one dictated by political and the other by
.strategical considerations. It might be found that these two
frontiers did not necessarily he so far apart as had hitherto been
.supposed. They might even coincide. His conception of the