ملف رقم ٤٨٨٠ لسنة ١٩١٣ الجزء ٢ "لجنة الحدود التركية-الفارسية: بروتوكول سنة ١٩١٣" [ظ‎‎٧‎٩] (٤٩٩/٢٦)

1. The Turkish commissioners consider that, instead of laying down that the
water system of Yarym Kaya should be left to Persia, it would be better to les
the Commission decide the line of frontier in this direction according to the
status quo.
Behdjet Bey explained that the protocol line is vague, and that the Ottoman
Government does not understand whether certain villages existing in the locality will
be given to Turkey or Persia. He added that if a locality called Sarnitch (not marked
on our maps and consisting of a reservoir and pasturage) he awarded to Persia, the
Turks will he cut off from their homage No. 37.
2. Kizil Kaya, or Belassour, is by the protocol to be given to Turkey or Persia,
according as its position is found on the western or eastern slope. If given to
Persia it will, according to Behdjet Bey, cut off the only carriage road between the
Turkish towns of Van and Bayazid, which passes through the village in question.
M. Minorsky, on behalf of his Government, declined to entertain either of these
objections. The protocol line represented, he said, the status quo line of 1848, and
indicated the maximum which could be conceded to Turkey. Sarnitch was not marked
on the identic map, and the sketch map shown by Behdjet Bey could not be accepted
as authoritative.
3. The Turks consider that the valley of the Abi Seri Gadyr (headwaters of the
Biver Gadzr belonging to the Ushnon water system) should belong to Turkey as
well as the valley of the Tchoumi Gueli, the basin of a river feeding the Lavene
(Lahidjan).
Both these localities should certainly be given to Persia, on the principle followed
as far as possible throughout, viz., that the eastern watersheds go to Persia and the
western to Turkey. It is further to be observed that in the case of the Tchoumi
Gueli the Turkish contention contravenes a point they have already conceded, viz., that
in that district the crest of the Kandil range is to be taken as the frontier. The fact,
alleged by the Turks, that certain Turkish tribes at some seasons descend the eastern
slope for pasturage does not, in our opinion, afford proof of Turkish possession.
4. With regard to Khan Guermela and the “ sixteen other villages ” of the Persian
district of Nowsoud (Avroman) the Turks expressed fear lest some may have disappeared
since the time of the first Commission, and that if the terms of the protocol stand the
Commission may find itself obliged to hand over other innocent villages to Persia to
make up the tale.
To obviate this danger, if it exists, we undertook to recommend that the protocol
should be modified as follows :—
“. . . . laissant du cote persan le village de Khan Guermela et les seize autres
villages qui du temps de la visite de la Commission de 1849-52 se trouvaient dans la
possession persane.”
5. Both Turks and Persians, though for different reasons, drew attention to the
vagueness of the frontier indicated by the protocol in the Zohab district south of the
Elvend. ^ M. Minorsky and I agreed that the passage beginning “ elle coupe la riviere
Elvend a un point,” and ending “ laissant a la Turquie le Nepthe Mukataassi,” requires
amplification, and we propose to redraft it. Immediately preceding this passage there
is also an omission, no mention being made of the frontier descending to the Turkish
post of Kanobez.
6. The lurkish commissioners expressed a wish that the protocol should safeguard
the proprietary rights of persons transferred from one sovereignty to the other. I see
no objection to this.
7 -Fh e y a l so drew 7 our attention to the omission in the protocol of a provision
(contained in the last paragraph of the memorandum of the Pussian Ambassador
(Enclosure 2 in Sir G. Lowther’s despatch No. 352 of the 26th April, 1913) ), by which
the Frontier Commission was to make an arrangement for the division of the water of
the Ganguir Piver in Soumar between the Kelhour tribe and the inhabitants of
Mendeli. This is presumably an accidental omission, and we promised to rectify it.
The above Turkish objections are in the main the same as those raised already in
the Porte’s identic note of the 23rd September, 1913.
1^ informed the other commissioners that His Majesty’s Government desired the
insertion at the end of article 1 of the whole of the Anglo-Turkish Agreement of the
29th July, 1913, to which no one objected. As the Persian commissioners did not
possess a copy, I gave them one.
We all found the reduced identic map inconvenient to use owing to the omission of