'File 1/A/38 I Negotiations with Bin Saud re:- Eastern boundary of Saudi Arabia with Qatar & Trucial Oman.' [‎42v] (89/452)

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4. The King received me at 9 a.m. I was accompanied as before by
Mr. Furlonge and Ismail Effendi, who interpreted, bheikh lussuf Yasm was I
m attendance^ compliment ^ j gaid that my Government had wished me to take
the first opportunity of expressing to the King m person the great pleasure with
which they had heard of the Saudi-Yemen settlement and their sense of the
wisdom which His Majesty had shown in dealing with that matter. I he King!
observed that he desired peace with all his neighbours, firstly, because they were!
Arabs, and secondly, because there was nothing to divide them. Kelymg, as ne
always did, on the friendship of His Majesty’s Government, he had sought their
advice. It accorded with his own views, and he had acted on it. I said tnatl
His Majesty’s Government believed the settlement to be m the best interest ot
Arabia and gave the credit for it to the King, who had shown himness, and hadi
known how to show moderation as well in the last phase. )
6. The King’s repeated affirmation of his friendship for His Majesty s
Government gave me the opportunity of saying that it was a primary point in
my instructions that I was to reaffirm their friendly dispositions, which were
unchanged and unchangeable, towards him and his country. I referred to the
importance of removing all possible obstacles to complete friendship by settling
certain questions, and to the wish of His Majesty’s Government to be informed
as to the desiderata of the King.
7. The King started with the subject of Iraq. His statements were long
and involved, but his drift was clear. He thought that all the Arab States
needed some outside Power to rely on, and, though there were other friends,
that Power should be Great Britain, who was in close relations with all of the
States concerned. He was worried lest Iraq, the strongest of the Arab States,
should be attacked by Turkey and/or Persia, and lest he should be menaced
through Iraq as a result. He observed that he was currently supposed to be
hostile to the ruling family of Iraq, but the truth was that he had nothing
against them. He desired their interest as well as his own. If the arrangements
between His Majesty’s Government and Iraq were such as to secure Iraq against
the attacks he feared, he would be easy in his mind. When Fuad Bey had spoken
of an Arab alliance, he had had in mind some arrangement between Iraq and
Saudi Arabia to ensure their mutual safety. The King intimated that he would
like to see some such arrangement arrived at under the auspices of His Majesty’s
Government, the friend of both.
8. 1 explained that my conversations with Fuad Bey, which had not been
completed owing to his illness, had not carried us quite as far as the King
suggested, e.g., he had not used the word “alliance” in connexion with Iraq.
I was all the more anxious to ascertain the King’s exact meaning, in order that
I might convey his ideas in a definite form to my Government. I gathered from
his statement that he had in mind three possible things in connexion with the
dangers he feared : (a) He had said that he would be easy in his mind, if assured
that the arrangements between His Majesty’s Government and Iraq sufficed to
safeguard the latter; (6) he had spoken of the possibility of some sort of alliance
or defensive treaty between him and Iraq; (c) he had spoken as though he
contemplated some sort of an alliance to which His Majesty’s Government could
be a party.
9. The King did not demur to my analysis. After some further exchanges,
I observed that point (c) was the only one on which I could speak. His Majesty’s
Government were animated in regard to the Arab States by a desire to see them
prosper and by the friendly sentiments of which we had spoken, but it was
contrary to their general policy to enter into alliances except in very special cases.
Their treaty with Iraq was defined as a “ Treaty of Alliance,” but that alliance
was the resultant of a process by which Iraq had evolved from her Turkish
provincial status, through British occupation and subsequent dependence on His
Majesty s Government, to hei present position. This was a special case, and
that of Saudi Arabia presented no analogy, for the simple reason that Ibn Sand
had never been dependent on Great Britain. Great Britain had created Iraa.
The King had created himself.
at • > r ^ le sa id that he was not insisting on an alliance with His
Majesty s Government. Their firm friendship was as good as any alliance He
redefined his ideas m terms which amounted to this : that he would like to come
to an arrangement with Iraq, under the auspices of His Majesty’s Government,