"14/172 I المجلد ب. ٦٨. السواحل العربية ومسائل متنوعة" [و‎‎١‎٣‎٣] (٤٢٠/٢٧٤)

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2.
4. With regard to the Cjuestiori. of what line the frontier
Qhould follow when once it reached the open sea (which v/e took to
"be when it reached the extreme southerly tip of Marakat Abadan),
I said thatj in the opinion of His Majesty's Governmentp the
most natural J simple and reasonable method of dividing territorial
waters was to plot a line all points on which were eouidistant
from the nearest points on the two coasts, which was another way
of saying that a ship would always he in the territorial waters
of the country to whose coast it ha pened to he closest at any
particular moment. I made it clear, however, that this was
only the opinion of His Majesty's Government, and that the point
could not he said to he covered hy international law, since no
rule of law had grown up hy custom and there had never heen any
authoritative arbitral decision.
5. Ellington and Mylles then asked for information upon
the status of the following islands - Sirri, Nahiya Farur, Farur,
Nahiya Tuhb, Tunh and Ahu Musa.
6. I explained that Sirri had heen occupied hy the
Persians in 1887, and effectively administered hy them ever since,
and that we had from time to time recognised that the Persians
were in effective occupation hy notifying them when British survey
vessels, for example, wished to go there; hut that we had also
always made it clear that this recognition of the de facto
position did not imply t at we admitted in any way that they had
any legal right to the sovereignty of the island. On the other
hand, we were prepared, as the Persians knew quite well, to
Recognise their sovereignty over the island as part of a general
settlement of Persian Gulf questions.
7. With regard to the others, the position of ITahiya Parur
was that it was indeterminate, inasmuch as it had never heen
recognised hy us as belonging to Persia. At the same time, no
one/