[Enclosure]
The Head of the Eastern Department of the
British Foreign Office (Oliphant) to
the American Chargé (Atherton)
London, November 7,
1927.
No. E 4579/136/65My Dear Atherton: In my letter of May
9th69 I
explained that the proposed convention between the United States,
this country and Iraq had been submitted to the Iraq Government for
their consideration and promised to communicate their views to you
as soon as possible.
We have now received the observations of the Iraq Government and have
reconsidered the original draft in the light of their suggestions.
The enclosed re-draft, which for convenience of reference I will
call the “revise of November 1st”, is the result.69a
You will see that it does not differ materially from the original
draft, and we hope that your Government will find no difficulty in
agreeing to it.
Article 4 of the original draft, by which His Majesty’s Government
agreed to furnish to the United States Government a duplicate of the
annual report on Iraq, has been omitted, since this obligation,
being one which applies solely to the British Government, would be
out of place in a tripartite convention of the present type. We
propose however, if your Government concur, that this point should
be dealt with by a formal exchange of notes, to take place
simultaneously with the exchange of ratifications of the
convention.
As you know, the question of the revision of the existing relations
between this country and Iraq has recently come under consideration
and negotiations on this subject are at present taking place. In our
opinion, however, this need not affect or delay the conclusion of
the proposed convention. Whatever may be the result of the present
negotiations, the existing rights and privileges of foreigners in
Iraq, which we are pledged to protect, will remain unimpaired. The
international position is, therefore, not likely to be modified and
you will see that in any case the rights of United States citizens,
in the event of any modification taking place in the special
relations between this country and Iraq, are fully protected by
Article 6 of the enclosed draft.
The present draft has now been agreed to by the Iraq Government and,
I think, fully meets all the points which your Government have
raised at various times. In these circumstances we hope that further
modification will not be necessary, and that it may prove possible
to sign the convention and bring it into force in the near
future.
Yours sincerely,
