Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎145r] (289/348)

CIRCULATED TO THE CABINET.
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
No. 2.—PRIVATE SECRETARY.
EASTERN (Turkey).
[October 20.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 2.
[E 11358/27/44] No. 1.
The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston to M. Poincare.
My dear President, Foreign Office, October 20, 192-
I HASTKN to reply to your letter of the 19th October regarding the peace
conference with Turkey, from Which I am happy to note that we are now in agreement
on nearly all essential points. . . ,
2. With regard to the date of the opening of the conference, I find it impossible,
for the practical reasons which I have already explained to you, and which have been
accentuated since I wrote, to fix any earlier date than the 13th November, but 1 wi
accept that date as the opening day of the conference. I agree with you that it is
essential to announce that date as soon as possible. . . ,
3. Further, I am gratified to see that we are now in accord as to the place of the
conference and the procedure to be followed as regards the Straits question.
4. I merely put forward the proposal as regards technical assistance rom the
League of Nations Secretariat as a suggestion, and have no wish to press it.
delegation will now provide their own staff of translators and typists, but 1 trust that
your Excellency will be able, as on previous occasions, to give the conference the
invaluable services of interpreters from French into English and vice versa.
5. With regard to the presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. of the conference, I fear that I still regard the
objections to a'neutral chairman put forward in my letter of the 18th October as
insuperable, and I think that we must confine ourselves to inviting M. Ador to open the
conference. In order to overcome the difficulty which your Excellency has foreseen
with regard to the smaller Powers or Turkey having to preside over the conference 1
would propose to confine the chairmanship (by rotation according to subjects) to the
four principal Allied Powers. No formal arrangement to this effect need be proposed
to the conference, but it could be arranged by a preliminary informal understanding
between the four principal Allied representatives, who would propose each other in turn
as chairman. The smaller Powers and Turkey would doubtless raise no objection in
practice to this arrangement. . . pin
6. I have looked up the question of the de jure recognition of the Georgian
Government. I find that on the 26th January, 1921, the Supreme Council decided to
recognise de jure the independence of Georgia, provided it was clearly established that
the latter desired immediate recognition. Accordingly, the next day (27th January)
the Georgian Minister for Foreign Affairs (at that time in Pans) wrote to the Supreme
Council to express officially to M. Briand, as President, the demand of the Georgian
Government and of the Georgian people to be recognised de jure by the Powers. 1 e
Supreme Council (not the Conference of Ambassadors) agreed on the 27th January that
this letter was sufficient and M. Briand thereupon wrote the letter of which you sent
me a copy ; but clearly the decision of the Supreme Council related to the de jure
recognition of the independence of Georgia, and I cannot accept that the then existing
Georgian Government could be regarded as the de jure (much less the de facto)
Government of Georgia to-day, or that it has any right to representation at the
C 01.1-£*61* H C ^
7 I am afraid that I cannot allow the question of the relative rights of the
Dominions and India and Morocco and Tunis respectively to participate in the conference
to be passed over without anv discussion of the reasons—irrefutable, as they appear to
me put forward in my letter of the 18th October, which render completely distinct the
status of the Dominions and India on the one hand and the French protectorates on the
other. No British Government could now reverse the decision formally taken at the
Peace Conference in Paris in 1919, regarding the status of the constituent members of
the British Empire, and I must formally reserve their right to be represented m the
British delegation at the forthcoming conference and to sign the Treaty of Peace and
the Straits Convention as they signed the Treaty of Sbvres, should they so desne i.
I can, of course, raise no objection to representatives of the 1 rench protectorates of
Morocco and Tunis being attached to the French delegation.
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