Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎252r] (506/1237)

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1
British Consulot©-General,
! Q44
Tsbri*.
o^/goi/ - 8 / 44 )
Gotob^r 5th. 1944.
iir #
I hsiv© the honour to reoort that, acoompr-niftd by
my kunshi, Mr. FarbusU, I have juat (jonroleted a fiY© day
tour of Western ^^rbaijan in th© oourae of which I visited
Khoi f Hezaioh end Mahebad.
g. I found that a new Feraeader had been inat lied at
Khoi since my last visit. He is leroail Navvab, who wae born
in Bafhd&d and -ae for mn ny y©f?.rs t he told me, employed by
the Iraq police. Before coming to Khoi he was serving in the
^outh, in Bushire and elsewhore. My opportunities of con
versation with him and other officials were limited os shortly
before reaching Khoi we had ricked up a badly shaken laspoetor
of Justice from an overturned oar. Inte ©st beeaise, therefore,
concentrated in his highly coloured and entirely untruthful
story of how the accident oceu red and in making arrangements
for ih© salvaging of the vehicle by prison labour, but I
subsequently learned that the Governor-Ganeral is satisfied
with the way the new Far uadar is performing his duties,
especially in maintaining good relations with the Russians.
The Faimndar, however, in a conversation with a reliable
infomant, has confessed to the difficulty attending those
relations and complained of a lack of reciprocity ®s, while
doing ©vex'ythlng ooaaible to iseet their wishes, it ie N difficult
to get corresponding help from them. I believe the real
position to be that while the Soviet Consul at I'aku, whoa©
?district includes Khoi, is amenable to reason, the foviet
jmilitary authorities are not entirely accommodating. The
latter authorities arc also known to be infinitely suspicious
of any foreigners visiting the area, a Soviet officer explain
ing to the Farmnndar that the long and 0 reful scrutiny mde
of the credentials of Persian officers passing through Fhoi
was due to the risk that some enemy m ight be masquerading in
Persian uniform. hen it pothTIfd out to him that the
Germans were equally Persian enemies end could not obtain
f Persian documents, the officer said he was not thinking of
Germans but of This story was told by the ? ; arman-
t dar to the sttraa’inforisant.
3. On the Journey to Heaaieh we were able to give a lift
to the head of the Kezaieh municipality v who had been left
stranded at Khoi by the driver of a hired oar, who, fearing
the confiscation of his vehicle by the Russians as he was
ualrr stqlon lonh—lease tyres, r d fled in the nipht• > \
Sezsieh I was again the guest of the French Catholic Mission,
and the extensive local knowledge of its superior, bather
Frmassan, end th© other priests formed a valuable background
for aopraiain* the general situation. In their conoany I
also made three excursions into the surrounding country-side
to enable roe to get a clearer picture of the tangled skein
of races whose animosities form the permanent pattern of life
in this district. As usual, l‘*avim out of account the Kurds,
it is the Assyrian minority which is the most restless and
lends itself most easily to leftish, pro-Russian movements
such as Tuden Iran. ‘These Catholic priests, ^hose flock is
sUiost •xclusively recruited from the Chaldea A^rian^
H.K.Imba© dor,
British %bassy,
Tehran.