IOR/L/PS/10/407

The volume contains India Office correspondence with the Foreign Office, mainly about the latter’s proposal to seek ratification of the Aden boundary settlement of 1905, as part of British counter-concessions to be tabled at the Anglo-Turkish Commercial Convention negotiations in London, 1913-1914. Included in this correspondence are observations made by the Viceroy of India, representing the views of the Government of India on the Aden frontier question; and discussions with the War Office, London, and the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton, about the reproduction of the Aden boundary protocols and maps in connection with the ratification process. The volume includes two, mainly French versions of the Aden Boundary Protocols of 1903, 1904 and 1905, jointly signed by Colonel R A Wahab and Colonel Moustapha Remzi Bey, the respective British and Ottoman boundary commissioners, together with two War Office maps dated 1906 and 1914, showing the Aden Protectorate boundary line and on the earlier map, tribal names and boundaries. There are also printed copies in French of a draft version (signed and dated 13 February 1914) and final version (signed and dated 9 March 1914) of the Anglo-Ottoman convention on the Aden frontier, in which both governments agreed to exchange instruments of ratification in London within three months.

The volume also contains less extensive correspondence about the commercial proposal (in French) dated 31 July 1913, drafted by Ibrahim Hakki Pasha, the chief Ottoman negotiator in London. This correspondence includes detailed observations made by the British Chargé d’Affaires at Constantinople [Istanbul] and the Board of Trade in London, about the further trade concessions in Persian Gulf countries sought by the Imperial Ottoman Government.