'File 5/2 I Kuwait Neutral Zone' [‎35r] (74/474)

2002/1934
Enclosure in Foreign Office Covering Letter
No.E.1839/1206/91 dated 23rd March 1934.
POBEICN OFFICE
No.123
1839/1206/91)
22nd March 1934.
S.W.l
Sir
In your despatch No.72 (176/2/34) of the 13th
February Tour Excellency reported an enquiry made by the
United States Embassy at Angora regarding the Anglo Turkish
Convention of the 29th July 1913. This enquiry may prove
of considerable importance, since there is reason to believe
that the interest which it reveals on the part of the United ^
States Government in the question of boundaries in Eastern
Arabia is in all probability connected with the activities i
of United States oil interests in that area. As you are no
doubt aware, in July, 1933, the Standard Oil Company of
California obtained from King Ibn Saud an oil concession
covering the eastern part of his dominions. To the north the
limits of this concession are co-terminous with the frontiers
between Saudi Arabia, on the on© hand and Iraq and the
independent Arab principality of Koweit, on the other. These
frontiers are now laid down in certain agreements referred to
in paragraph 4 below, but the position in the south and
south east is, however, less simple.
2. On the 29th July 1913, His Majesty’s Government
concluded with the Ottoman Government a convention defining
the south eastern boundary of Turkish Arabia A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. ^from the coast
of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. as far as the twentieth parallel of
latitude. A second Convention concluded on the 9th March
19X4, continued the definition of this boundary between this
point and the already delimited frontier between the Vilayet
of/
Excellency The Et.Honourable
Sir Percy Loraine, Bart., K.
K.C.M.G.,
etc., etc., etc.,
Angora.