File 1356/1912 Pt 1 'Turco-Persian Frontier:- negotiations at Constantinople.' [‎50r] (109/885)

As a matter of fact, painstaking local research has failed to find any trace or even
tradition of payments to Turkey for any lands to the e ist of the frontier as now locally
recognised.
But equally painstaking local research by Major Rawlinson in 1844 showed
opposite results as regards the payments to Turkey up to that time. — A. P.
Note 4.
Pages 14 and 15 : Nationality and Ownership of the Lands lying between the
locally recognised Boundary and Mohammerah.
We have it on the authority of Rawlinson that towards the beginning of the
19th century the Ka’ah gradually withdrew from the part of the left bank of the
Shatt-el-Arab opposite and above Bussorah, and remained in possession of nothing
higher up than the Tamar lands (see foot of p. 14). At p. 16 he states with regard to
the Haffar lands that Turkey had no valid geographical claim to them, and that for
many years they had been practically lost to her.
1 submit that her claim to the Haffar lands is based upon the same arguments
and is every whit as valid as her claim to the Tamar lands, which Rawlinson mentions
in the same breath in the middle of p. 14, and that if Rawlinson considered Turkey’s
claim to the Haffar lands invalid, it follows that her claim to the Tamar lands is likewise
invalid.
The claim of Persia to remain in possession of the lands may therefore be based on
the following grounds :—
1 . That in 1844 (before the treaty of 1848), Major Rawlinson found these lands to
be in possession of the Ka’ab (p 14), and considered that Turkey could not advance
any valid geographical claim to them, and that for many years they had been practically
lost to her.
2 . That for so long as Mohammerah has been in possession of the Ka’ab or of
Persia, so long have these lands been in possession of the Ka’ab, and that the ruling of
Sir Stratford Canning at p. 14, “that the principle of uti possidetis might be
considered to apply to that district without injustice,” applies equally to Mohammerah
and to the Tamar and other lands in question.
Sir Stratford Canning’s statement that the Persians were not in possession of the
left bank of the Shatt-el-Arab higher than Mohammerah is directly contradicted by
the contemporary evidence of Major Rawlinson at the foot of p. 14 of his memorandum
of the 6 th January, 1844.
3 . That the claim made on behalf of Persia in 1850 of ancient occupation has been
vastly strengthened by over sixty years of continued undisputed possession by Persia,
and recognition of Persian sovereignty by local representatives of the Turkish Govern
ment in many ways and on many different occasions.
4 . That the boundary as now observed has for many years been commonly and
officially recognised as such by all concerned, both Arabs, Persiaus, and Turks. Cairns
and other marks have been put up in the vicinity of the boundary line by common
consent, (See (a) “Gazetteer,” p. 1257 ; (b) paragraph 4, p. 51, Wilson’s precis; (c)
paragraph 4 , p. 52, idem; (d) paragraph 5, Lieutenant Wilson’s letter of the 5th May,
1912, forwarded to Foreign Office and India under Resident’s letter of the 6 th May.)
At Di’aiji, just beyond the boundary, there exists a regular Turkish customs post
(see “ Gazetteer,” p. 110 ), the position of which implies the most explicit recognition by
the Porte of the locally recognised boundary.
In view of fifty years’ continuous recognition of the present boundary by their
local officials, it is surely impossible for the Turkish Government to claim some other
line and refuse to be bound by the acts and omissions of its own agents. Qui facit per
alium facit per se.
5 . That the explanatory note in no way bears on these particular lands ; Mr.
Wellesley (at p. 24) does not say that the lands referred to in the second explanatory
note are immediately above Mohammerah, and it may be reasonably presumed that the
Porte was contemplating, with not unnatural anxiety, the lands above Di’aiji and
almost opposite Bussorah, which were then, as now, mostly in the hands of the Ka’ab
(see Lorimer’s “Gazetteer,” pp. 108 to 111 , which shows the Muhaisin to be in
practically in continuous occupation, as freeholders or leaseholders of Turkish territory,
of the whole left bank of the river above Di’aiji to within 6 miles of Bussorah).