IOR/R/15/2/562

The file comprises correspondence between the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Charles Geoffrey Prior), Political Agent at Bahrain (Reginald George Evelin Alban, Edward Birkbeck Wakefield), the Sub-Postmaster at Bahrain, Secretary to the External Affairs Department of the Government of India (William Rupert Hay, Hugh Weightman), His Majesty’s Minister at Tehran (Sir Reader Bullard), and the Iranian Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the Iranian Government’s decision in 1939 to refuse to accept mail and telegrams sent from Bahrain as international mail owing to their claims to Bahrain as part of Iran and that all mail should be sent as Iranian internal mail.

The correspondence discusses the various forms used to send mail on from Bahrain to Iranian ports; various procedures tested between 1939 and 1942 in an attempt to find a process which the post offices at Iranian ports would accept; and the alternative routes for mail and telegrams via Basra and Muscat owing to the ongoing difficulties. Also included are the negotiations with the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the eventual resolution of the situation in 1942.

Also mentioned in the file is the temporary problem in April and May 1941 of the newly established Iraqi Censorship Office in Basra opening all mail being sent through there and the need to ensure confidential mail was not opened by them.

A series of file notes which were maintained as a record of the correspondence in the volume can be found at folios 194-204. These file notes relate only to the correspondence from folio 62 onwards, the correspondence on folios 2-16, and possibly also folios 17-61 appear to have been placed in the file at a later date after the file notes were compiled.