‘A collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and neighbouring countries’ [‎13] (30/578)

I'EiiiSiA.
13
T “ f 0 " the 1 f 8Ian Gfoy emment sent an expedition under the com
mand of Hamza Muza against the Tekke Turkmans of Mew, who were
considered to he Persian subjects though beyond the control of the Central
government m order to punish them for the constant raids made on
ivhorasan Mery was taken on the 15th of July, the Turkmans having
made but little opposition; but, when the Persian Commander endeavoured
on October 5th to move from his entrenched camp to more suitable
ground he was attacked by the Turkmans and totally routed, the expedi-
tion returning to Khorasan in great confusion.
Hie disorganized state of the border districts of Persia and Turkey
uid long been productive of dissensions between the two States. Com-
pamts of the passage of nomad tribes to and from the-Pashalik of
Baghdad, and of the grant of an asylum to marauders and refugees by
the frontier authorities, led to the insertion of articles in the Treaty of
Erzerum of 1823 (Appendix No. VI) providing for the remedy of these
abuses. These provisions proved ineffectual, and in 1849 four commis
sioners were appointed on the part of England, Russia, Persia and
turkey respectively, for the purpose of defining the border as provided
m the second and third of the Articles of Agreement signed at Erzerum
m 1847 (Appendix No. X). A map of the border districts was prepared
fiv the commission, but the actual demarcation was not effected, and the
question remained in abeyance. In 1869 a protocol* was signed by the
Persian and Turkish representatives on the simultaneous presentation
by the representatives of England and Russia at Constantinople and
Tehran, of a map which had been drawn up by the English and Russian
commissioners. On this map a band of territory varying from 25 to 40
miles wide was laid down, within which the mediatory powers declared
that they considered the frontier line ought to be found. Under this
piotocol the status quo of the lands in dispute, which were situated on the
aonth-western slope of the Pusht-i-Koh range, near the Tigris, was to be
maintained until the boundary line should be settled, and no buildings
were to be erected on these lands.
In 1869, the Russians having firmly established themselves at Kras-
novodsk on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, it was found necessary
to define the frontier between Russia and Persia; and accordingly an
agreementf was drawn up secretly and acknowledged by an autograph
letter of the Shah fixing the river Atrak as the boundary between the
two States. The Persian Government later declared that the Atrak
frontier only referred to the seaboard and to about 50 miles inland, and
did not include the river to its source.
* Appendix No. XII.
t Appendix No. XIII.