'File 73/7 IV (D 25) Anglo-Turkish Negotiations' [‎29v] (68/103)

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Power. I confess even I find it difficult to avoid some such conclusion when the a
agreement contains clauses—
(a.) Acknowledging Turkish suzerainty, hitherto disputed;
{h.) Permitting a Turkish official in Koweit, hitherto strenuously opposed;
(c.) Maintaining Turkish military posts, hitherto protested against as encroach
ments ;
[d.) Circumscribing boundaries hitherto unquestioned and actually maintained ;
and
(e.) Recognising the Ruler of Koweit as a Turkish official, hitherto denied.
In the effort to reconcile the agreement, should it materialise as proposed, with the
actually existing position, the sheikh and his people will ask themselves the inevitable
question, " what has induced the British Government to make this agreement concerning ^
us, so seriously to our detriment, and that, too, when Turkey is of no account in the
world ? " The answer locally is obvious, viz., that Koweit has been made use of by the
British Government to obtain something else, a recognition of other claims elsewhere, a
concession in regard to the Bagdad Railway, and the like. When it is remembered
further that the Ruler of Koweit has not been consulted during the negotiations, has
not been informed as to their course, and is to be presented with a fait accompli of
some such description, I submit it is not unreasonable to expect the deepest disappoint
ment and resentment at our action. How that resentment will aflect our future
relations I am loathe to contemplate, but I feel sure that its effect will not be merely
local—it will affect us along the whole Arabian littoral of the Persian Gulf Historically used by the British to refer to the sea area between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. Often referred to as The Gulf or the Arabian Gulf. by shaking
the confidence which our support has hitherto inspired.
No amount of explanation will ever remove the impression that we have used
Koweit as a pawn to secure other advantages for ourselves, more especially if some such
advantages later become manifest, as, for instance, a settlement in our favour of the
Bagdad Railway question.
8. It may be said I have exaggerated the probable disappointment and overrated
its possible effect. It may be so, but with over four years' experience of Koweit, its
ruler and its people, with whom the discussions of high politics on the mischievous
lines supplied by the vernacular press occupies almost their whole leisure, I feel it to be
my duty, even at this late hour, to endeavour to obtain some reconsideration of what
appears to be almost a completed document, when that document seems calculated to
destroy, with a stroke of the pen, a position which we have been at no small expenditure
of energy and money to consolidate in Koweit, particularly, during the last ten years
or more.
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