Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎550r] (1102/1237)

5
The following notes are based on information supplied by the manager here
of the Imperial Bank of Iran :—
All bazaars have been quiet except for a period of some ten days at the
beginning of June, when there were active dealings, especially in imported
goods. All commodities registered a rise of up to 30 per cent., but there have
been reactions since then, and in the last week of June there was a general fall
in values of about 10 per cent.
Dealings in carpets have been greatly impeded by the recent law requiring
exporters to guarantee the import of foreign goods to the value of their exports.
The export and import trades are handled by quite different sets of merchants;
a carpet exporter knows nothing of the import trade and cannot guarantee the
import of goods unless he is able, and permitted, to have an arrangement whereby
an importer will take over the obligation to import.
There is no market now except Russia for the dried fruits, wool, cotton and
skins which formerly went to Germany. The Russians are taking advantage of
their buying monopoly to fix prices as low as possible, and exporters say the
Russian prices yield little profit and sometimes involve loss. Ihey do not
therefore want to supply Russia.
The only imports during recent months have come from Russia, consisting
mainly of sugar, earthenware, medicinal and piece goods.
14. Consular Visits and Tours .—It is now an established routine for con
sular officers in Tabriz, the Iraqi excepted, to see each other every few days. These
exchanges are sometimes useful, but quite frequently they are a waste of time
And the way in wffiich men like the Turkish Consul-General discuss world
politics would be entirely ludicrous if it were not at times so dangerous.
The Soviet Consul-General visited Rezaieh during the Kurdish disorders
there in May. He has recently made short tours to points nearer Tabriz, where
Russian posts are established ‘to deal with points arising between the military
and the Persian civil authorities.
I have made only one sortie frofn Tabriz so far, namely, to Rezaieh, from
the 15th until the 20th May, ostensibly to call on the new Governor-General, but
in reality to find out what was behind the commotion over there. I stayed with
the French Mission, where I was fed with good food, good wine of the country
and stories of massacre and doom. In the course of my visit I exchanged calls
with the various authorities, received visits from Moslems, Armenians and
Assyrians, and heard their tales of persecution and fear, visited some of the
pillaged villages and generally tried to show myself at places where there was
supposed to be danger from the Kurds, a danger which I knew to be almost
non-existent.
When I got to Rezaieh I found the Persians and Russians at a deadlock.
Each was waiting for the other to make the first move for the establishment of
mixed military and gendarme posts, and neither was doing anything efiective
towards getting the peasants back to their villages. I was able to bring them
together and to make a beginning.
In other ways I felt less satisfaction over the results of my visit. I did my
best to steer a middle course between Russians and Persians, but inevitably my
actions had some semblance of investigating what the Russians were doing, what
games they were playing with the Kurds. Although the Russian commandant
put on a concert in the town theatre at seven hours’ notice, and although the
consul was very cordial and helpful, I had less success with the political officers,
who kept a close watch on my movements.
I have a somewhat indefinite promise of a vice-consul later on. If it is
kept I propose, subject to approval, to go to Baku in company with the Soviet
Consul-General in August, and I would like to go to Angora, too, just to see the
conditions on both sides of the frontier, in so far as they have a bearing on
smuggling and possible movement of goods from Persia to Germany through
Turkey. I am not satisfied that the Russians are sufficiently alert in this
matter.
15. The following notes are based on local observation only. I see no print
and have no means of following the trend of relations, in the wide sense of the
term, between the countries represented in Azerbaijan : —
Russo-Persian Relations .—The main points of difficulty during the past
two months have arisen from—
{a) The Kurdish question.
(5) Persian desire to increase their local military strength.
(c) Alleged, Soviet attempts at political penetration.
(d) Commercial matters.