مجموعة ٢٨ /٦٧ "بلاد فارس: تقارير سنوية، ١٩٣٢-" [و‎‎٢‎٩‎٤] (٦٤٤/٥٨٧)

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■i 111 ""Wi
Government, it is worth pointing out that this tj iem ® * s . fallacious on at
three counts; none of which, however, is easy to hand e in • financial
place, while it is true that His Majesty’s Government own a a
interest in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, they do not run the company^as^a
governmental organisation nor use it as a stalking-horse . ■, i,i
Persian authority. Any Soviet company exploiting the North Persian oil would,
Vvr.nri cimnlv anrl snlelv a Soviet Government organisatio , ^
Persian authoritv. Any soviet eompau^ . . A
on the other ha/d, be simply and solely a Soviet Government organisation, and
Wonlrl as such oromote bv every means the subversive policy wmcn inai
Government h is' already carried so' far in North Persia through other agencies.
This 1 is”/fundamental difference of which the Persians themselves are fully
aware though they cannot afford to mention it public y. OT1 4 on nil
27. The second main difference is this: The original Angio-Iranian Od
Company concession was freely negotiated on a commercial basis and under no
threat of coercion; the present concession ' vas -, ^ Tflllshah’s Ireedy
atmosohere of crisis but the crisis had been brought about by Keza blian s greeay
vicdatum of a legally valid contract, and resulted ^^X^/arTt^w^
more favourable to Persia than the original. In so iai as P /
the Russians claimed was genuinely commercia not ^ant the Bntish
no more called upon to grant it than they would have been to grant tne J3rui
ior the Chinese') a concession balancing the former Russian fisheries of t
Caspian littoral In commercial matters a P °^ e er “ a J ^ ^
enualitv of opportunity to obtain concessions (and this the Russians naa na
h? lt no t of course equality of advantage with every other successful competito .
In so far as the parity claimed was in reality political (which the Russians do
not and cannot admit m terms), the demand for it could only imply their sudde
determination—after a “ disequilibrium " lasting more than forty years aI ) d
the midst of a war in which Great Britain was their ally—to counteract the
static influence of that ally in the territory of a third party. Unfortunately, a
explained above, the Persians are debarred from using this valid argumen y
reason of the past mendacity of some of them and the credulity of others y
have too long stifled the consciousness of their own b / t the^hls^of his
late Shah, as a British puppet, staged the crisis of 1933 at the behest
maSt 28 S ' There remains, however, a third point of dissimilarity which can
scarcely be dismissed as unimportant : whatever may be ^slnt
Pi rrnmStances attending the grant of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company s present
concession it was certainly not granted without prior discussion and settlemen
of the financial terms The Russians have attempted to dispose of this awkward
O -nT hv nretend n.. ; that M Kavtaradze was empowered to offer very
? IhleanH Profitable terms” If he was, he made no use of his powers. He
Sd no “Im P s “oev™ and he himself stated .at the press interview
referred to above that the discussion as to the currency m which payment would
tie made was to take place after the concessions had been obtained, and the
general tenor of his statements at that interview makes it clear that what the
loviet Government had demanded was the grant of
without previous discussion or even revelation of the Soviet LrO\ein
detailed proposals. There is,, moreover, no reason, on past form, to suppose that
the' terms which the Russians would eventually have imposed would have been
1 thpv forced the Persian Government to supply ammunition and
™™,S.SU-4 •' W-Jrt ” '«« ‘ft™ 1 * “
Sm ta HI.
Government and the United States'Government. On the 2nd November His
Malestvh Ambassador in Moscow addressed written representations to
M olotov pointing out that, while His Majesty’s Government were far from
contestine the P ri.>-ht of the Soviet Government to seek a concession in North Persia,
they considered lhat the Persian Government had the right to refuse, and they
themselves had consequently accepted the Persian Government s decision to grant
no Uwfihel oil concessions till after the war. To coerce the Persian Government
would not, they considered, be in accordance with the Tripartite Treaty and t le
Tehran HeclaraGcm^unication did not specifically ask for a jeply and none
was received during the crisis. At about the same time the United States
Ambassador made representations which are understood to have been on broadly
similar lines Oral representations were also made to a member of the Soviet
Fmbassv in London on the 18th November. As it was decided in the first instance
n™ to Inform the Persians that any representations had been made on then
[64—52] C