Ext 1133/47 'Foreign Office print: Persian Frontiers (with map)' [‎6r] (11/30)

Persia harboured the design of regaining
the Transferred Territories with their oil
fields (see para. 13 above)( 1 ).
20. Although Persia recognised Iraq
officially in 1929, the dispute over the Shatt
al-Arab frontier persisted, and it was not
S^til the 4th July, 1937, that the two
lowers signed a treaty in which it was
agreed (in article 2) that the frontier
should leave the most advanced point {i.e.,
the north-west end) of the island of Shatait
(which had been allocated to Persia by the
Turco-Persian Frontier Commission in
1913-14) and follow the thalweg of the
stream for four and a half miles to a point
oh No. 1 jetty at Abadan,( 2 ) whence it
returned to the left bank of the river which
it followed as before as far as Tuwaijat.
In all respects the frontier remained as
fixed in 1913-14. Article 3 of the treaty
provided for the setting up of a joint
Commission to demarcate the frontier as it
had been defined in 1913 and also to fix
such new frontier marks as it might con
sider necessary.
21. This treaty also provided for the con
clusion of a conservancy agreement.
22. While it was satisfactory that Persia
and Iraq had agreed to this extent, there
was, unfortunately, no time limit specified
within which the conservancy agreement
was to be concluded.
23. From the British point of view this
treaty was unsatisfactory for several
reasons. In the first place, there was the
omission of the time limit mentioned above.
Secondly, there was no guarantee that the
conservancy agreement, in the event of it
ever reaching finality, would contain
adequate provisions for the maintenance
of navigability in the waters ceded by Iraq
to Persia. Lastly, there remained the
possibility that Persia might not ade
quately carry out conservancy work in her
own waters; there would obviously be a
likelihood of harm to British interests in
the event of parts of the river channel on
the Persian side of the frontier being
allowed to silt up, thus causing the
thalweg line to shift towards the Iraqi
bank of the Shatt.
24. Nine and a half years have now
elapsed since the treaty was signed, and
(') This belief was later fostered by German propa
ganda. trom September 1939 onwards, it was from
time to time alleged, in broadcasts in Persian, that
these territories had been detached from Persia
because they were oil-bearing.
( 2 ) The latitude of this point is wrongly given in
Foreign Office print E 4521/73/34 as 30° 28' 04" N.
It should be 30 20 08• 4" N. The mistake occurred
originally in the text of the treaty published in the
Journal dc Tehran on 20th July, 1937.
there is still no sign of the conclusion of
the conservancy agreement, while Persian
obstruction and procrastination have pre
vented the Delimitation Commission from
completing their task.
III.—Frontier with the U.S.S.R.
25. Persia’s frontier with Soviet Russia
is divided into two portions by the Caspian
Sea. As the western stretch of this
frontier is the more ancient of the two, it
will be dealt with first.
(i) West of the Caspian Sea
26. With two such vigorous personali
ties as the Tsar Boris Godunov and Shah
Abbas the Great as their respective heads,
it seemed that Russia and Persia would
inevitably come to blows over Daghistan,
Shirvan and Georgia in the opening years
of the XVIIth century. Russia made an
attack on the north of Daghistan, and in
1604 sent an envoy to Georgia to demand
that country’s submission, but the Tsar
died in the following year, before anything
tangible could result. After Boris’s death,
Russia entered upon her “ Time of
Troubles,” and for over a century was
unable to entertain thoughts of territorial
expansion in the Caucasus regions. Shah
Abbas, freed from the risk of collision with
Russia, succeeded in re-establishing Per
sian supremacy in Georgia and Armenia,
but after his death in 1628 a decline set in.
27. When the XVIIIth century dawned,
the weakness of the Safavi state became
very marked, and it was overthrown with
surprising ease by the Ghalzai Afghans
in 1722. Meanwhile, Peter the Great had
been formulating his Caspian policy and
his more ambitious design to open up an
overland trade route to India. His ships
roamed the waters of the Caspian, while
his officers made charts of that sea and
surveyed its shores.
28. Baulked of his hopes of finding a
safe route to India via Khiva and Bukhara
by the murder of his envoys en route, Peter
turned his attention to the western side
of the Caspian. When he learnt that the
Turks were planning to take advantage of
the weakness of Persia to break through
to the Caspian, he resolved on immediate
invasion. In 1722, using the murder of
some Russian traders in Shirvan as a
pretext, he descended upon and captured
Darband, and in the following year his
troops seized Baku and landed in Gilan.
When Tahmasp Shah heard of the Russian
invasion, he sent an envoy to Peter to
negotiate a treaty of alliance. On the 23rd
September, 1723, a treaty was signed in