مجموعة ٣٠/ ٢٣٣ (ق) "المطالبات الفارسية بطنب وأبو موسى" [ظ‎‎١‎١] (٣١/٢٣)

S3CRET
F.O. telegram No, 781 to Tehran,
2 .
our point of viev/ unchanged, while allowing the
Persian Government to claim that it is discussing
the question with us.
(i) Though Sheikh of Ras Al Khaimah-has taken
little interest in Tamh and at one time agreed to
lease it to Persians, he is unlikely to wish to
accommodate Persians now with oil still more in
evidence and sea-bed rights to the fore. Accordingly
we see no means of holding out any hope to Persians
and must adhere to our consistently maintained position
that we recognise claims of Sheikhs of Ras al Khainah
and Sharjah to Tamb and Abu Musa respectively and
cannot agree to the Persian Govemmenl taking over
territory belonging to Arab rulers under our
protection. We propose to reply verbally to Persian
Ambassador in sense of second part of last sentence
adding that we trust that they will take no
precipitate action in view of nresent friendly
relations and fact that question has been dormant
for past 13 years.
(ii) Should Persians return to charge v/e propose
to point out that as we have in past made our position
fully clear (Sir R. Clive's Notes of 1930 and 1934) _
without receiving a reply meeting our case, we consider
it is up to them to let us have a full presentation of
theirs. We might also add that Persian Government
were warned in 1905 that ”the revival of their claim
to Tamb meant the revival of ours to Sirri M , which
warning was repeated in 1909. We would also at this
stage put to the Persians strongly the idea that it
is very bad policy for them to revive these_entirely
unnecessary and invalid claims^against us.simply in an
attempt to appease those mischievous Persian politicians
who are inspired by Russian propaganda. The international
situation is too serious to allow of these attempts to
drive a wedge between’countries v/hose fundamental interests
are identical.
(iii) If after communications on these lines the
Persians still persisted in their claim, the next step
might we suppose be the possibility of reference to the
International Court. We should not want to suggest,
this and our case might not be so strong as on Bahrein,
but in the last resort if the Persians press for this
we should no doubt have to agree. One of the chief
disadvantages would be that a decision favourable to the
Persians on these two islands might encourage them to
press their claims to Bahrein and might even.seem to
provide the Court with a precedent for.deciding
that cuestion in their favour (though in fact the
prescriptive arguments are very much stronger in our
favour over Bahrein and there is not the awkward
question of an interregnum).