File 2764/1904 Pt 3 'Baghdad Railway: general negotiations 1910-1912.' [‎112r] (232/544)

EASTERN DEPARTMENT.
A
'a,
SECRET SERIES.
[1727]
L 23 JAM 911
No. 1 .
[January 16.]
Section 5,
(No 8 ) S * r G ' BUChanan t0 Sir Edward Grey.—(Received January 16.)
SU ’ 1 h AS K E D M. Sazonow yesterday whether there' wafanyTrutht’tatement
made by the Novoe Vremya a few days ago that the Russian Government was about
to address a note to the German Government in reply to the one which the latter Cd
sent them short y after the conclusion of the Anglo-Russian agreement, with regard to
their future attitude towards German interests in the Middle East. 5
His Excellency replied by inveighing against the editor of the “ Novoe Vremva ”
for having published such a statement and against the “Times” correspondent for
having telegraphed home what the editor of that paper had told him without first
controlling its accuracy. A correspondent of the “ Novoe Vremya” he said, had called
at the Ministry of foreign Affairs and had been told, in reply to the enquiries which
he had made respecting the course of the negotiations with Germany, that a draft
projet bad been sent to Berlin, and be had thereupon concocted a story about a fresh
note. The draft agreement, of which he had given me the text, was, his Excellencv
declared, the only answer which he was sending to the German note of 1907.
M. Sazonow added that he had not wished to give undue importance to this mis
statement by publishing an official dementi.
In my telegram No. 7 of yesterday’s date I stated that it was M. Sazonow himself
who had spoken to the correspondent of the “ Novoe Vremya.” I must, however have
misunderstood his Excellency, as he told my French colleague to-day that the
correspondent had only seen an official in the Press Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.
I have, &c.
GEORGE W. BUCHANAN.