[Enclosure]
The British Assistant Under Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs (Oliphant) to
the American Chargé (Atherton)
[London,] 17 July, 1931.
No. E 3580/5/93My Dear Atherton: In the absence of the
Secretary of State and of General Dawes, I write to let you know
that the question raised in His Excellency’s letter of April
23rd21 to Mr. Henderson22 on the subject of oil
concessions in Iraq, have been carefully considered and have been
brought to the notice of the Iraqi Government.
To obviate any misunderstanding which may exist, I would draw
attention to the fact that Article 11 of the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of
October 10th, 1922,23 and article (1) of
the Protocol attached to the Tripartite Convention of January 9th,
1930, relate only to discrimination on grounds of nationality. In
the opinion of His Majesty’s Government, they do not require that
every concession shall, before being granted, be put up to public
tender, but only that in all matters relating to the grant of
concessions, the decision of the Iraqi Government must be based upon
the best interests of Iraq, to the exclusion of all considerations
of nationality. The Iraqi Government did not of course themselves
seek out or approach the British Oil Development Company. It was the
Company which took the initiative and approached the Iraqi
Government with certain offers and it is the opinion
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of His Majesty’s Government that other
oil interests have had similar opportunities and sources of
information, and that it has been open to them to approach the Iraqi
Government in the same way as did the British Oil Development
Company. Had they done so, the Iraqi Government would have felt
themselves bound to consider, and undoubtedly would have considered,
their offers in the same way as they have considered the offers made
by the British Oil Development Company.
In fact, however, the Iraqi Government have not at present granted
any concession to the British Oil Development Company, and, although
they cannot bind themselves to postpone indefinitely the grant of
concessions in the remaining available oil bearing land in Iraq, the
United States Government will see from the terms of a notice issued
in the Iraq Official Gazette on June 21st (a copy of which I enclose
for convenience of reference24) that they are still free and willing to
consider offers which may be made to them before September 30th
next, by any other oil interests, in respect of the whole or any
part of the area remaining outside the concessions already granted
to the Iraq Petroleum Company and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
Yours very sincerely,
