File 1356/1912 Pt 1 'Turco-Persian Frontier:- negotiations at Constantinople.' [‎259r] (527/885)

DC
27
To Lord
Bloomfield,
No. 256,
July 12 , 1850.
Sir Arnold
Kemball,
Memorandum,
April 2, 1875.
Colonel Shell
(Tehran), No. 35,
March 25, 1850.
Declaration, dated
January 31, 1848,
of Persian envoy
at Constantinople.
really only 2^ miles.—A. P.] from the Hafiar; and
thence in as straight a line as circumstances will
admit of to the town and district of Hawiza, passing
through the towers named by Dervish Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. .
The Persian pretensions are marked in blue, while
those of the Porte will be found traced in green.
In this diagram I have omitted the dotted lines
which mark the “ supposed frontier ” in the skeleton
charts in the possession of your Excellency and the
Foreign Office; and I do this to prevent confusion
which a number of traces would cause on a diagram
which by necessity is so small.
Thus we offer to Persia a free entrance to, and
security in, her port of Mohammerah, at the same time
ensuring to Turkey the navigation of the Shatt-el-
Arab by the destruction of the fort (at Feylieh)
built by Sheikh Jabir during the conferences of
Erzeroum
Colonel Williams referred too to the wish of
Dervish Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. for the retention of this fort by
the Turks, hut he and his colleague deemed its
destruction indispensable.*
In the same despatch Colonel Williams ex
pressed the view that any other line which the
Mediating Commissioners might have proposed
would have failed in producing the desired
results.
Her Majesty’s Government and the Russian
Government pronounced in favour of the line of
the Mediating Commissioners.
The Persian Government, while disposed to
forgo its own pretensions, maintained that the
line proposed by the Mediating Commissioners
ought to be drawn at a place T or 6 miles to
the west of Pailieh, near a place called Tamar
higher up the Shatt-el-Arab, the argument being
that a portion of the Chaab resided on, and was
in actual possession of, the land up to the above
spot, if not beyond it.
* As bearing on this point, it should be mentioned that,
Turkey having raised the question, the Persian envoy had
written in January 1848 to the British and Russian repre
sentatives at Constantinople as follows :—
“ Sa Majeste le Schah consent a ce qu’aussi longtemps que
la Turqnie ne batira point de fortifications sur la rive droite
du Chatt-el-Arab, situee vis-a-vis du territoire persan, la
Perse a son tour s’abstiendra d’en construire sur la partie de
la rive gauche qui lui revient selon les stipulations du traite.”
Mohammerah town was excluded from this prohibition.