Coll 17/15(2) 'Relations with Persia: Persia-Iraq frontier; Persia's claim in the Shatt-el-Arab' [‎408v] (827/1010)

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Maiesty’s Government had more than once made their position clear. In these
circumstances, what was the assistance which the Iranian Government hoped
to receive from us? „ „ . , , .
6 M Ala replied that, although Iraq was a fully independent State and
a member of the League of Nations, His Majesty’s Government still occupied a
very special position in regard to the new State. The long period during which
they had held a mandatory position had given them a very special moral influence
and the Iranian Government were convinced that the Iraqi Government would
still be guided by the advice of His Majesty’s Government in any major question
if it were sufficiently strongly expressed. Iran felt very strongly that the frontier
claimed by Iraq in the Shatt-el-Arab was inequitable and anomalous. What Iran
claimed was a frontier drawn in accordance with international practice running
down the thalweg of the Shatt and giving her full sovereignty over half the water.
This was the solution for the realisation of which the Iranian Government
desired the good offices of His Majesty s Government.
7 I explained to M. Ala the difficulties of dealing with this question on
any such basis, more especially now that Iran had disputed the legal validity of
the existing frontier as a whole. But the main question was surely a purely
practical one. It had always been recognised that the situation on this frontier
involved a number of practical difficulties and that close co-operation between the
two States was essential if these difficulties were to be overcome. With this
object in view His Majesty’s Government, who were no less interested than Iraq
and Iran in the proper maintenance of the Shatt waterway, had long sought
to further a practical solution. Such a solution, I suggested, might well be
found in a tripartite conservancy convention, such as that which had already
formed the subject of discussion. Under such a convention Iran would obtain
an equal voice with Iraq in the control of the waterway and would secure all
the practical advantages which she could desire. I emphasised how important it
was to overcome the practical difficulties of the situation quite irrespective of
the question of the frontier-line itself, and I strongly urged on the Minister the
desirability of his Government concentrating first and foremost on this aspect
of the problem.
8. I pointed out to M. Ala that a solution on these lines had been put
forward, largely at the instance of His Majesty’s Government, and had been
provisionally accepted by Iran as early as 1932, that that offer had been revived
and restated by Nuri Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. in February 1935 and was still open. I emphasised
the advantages of the three conventions comprised in this offer—the Shatt-el-Arab
Conservancy Convention, the Oil Royalties Pooling Agreement and the
Bon-Voisinage Convention—and I repeated to him my conviction that it was
on these lines that the true solution of the present difficulty was to be found.
9. M. Ala, while appearing to appreciate this point, said that the difficulty
was that the Iraqi Government had made it a condition that any such negotiations
could only take place on the basis of the 1914 line, the validity of which his
Government could not accept. I hope that I may, nevertheless, have convinced
him that it is only in this direction that the Iranian Government can hope to
obtain the practical support of His Majesty’s Government in this dispute.
10. I am sending copies of this despatch to His Majesty’s Ambassadors in
Rome and Bagdad
I am. &c.
JOHN SIMON
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