IOR/L/PS/12/3493A

Papers relating to the railway line running from Duzdap [Zahedan] via Mirjawa [Mīrjāveh] in Iran, across the border to Nok Kundi in India (now Pakistan).

The first section of the file contains papers dated December 1934 to November 1941 (ff 111-184), chiefly exchanged between HM Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Tehran, Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen, and the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India. The correspondence concerns the viability of the Duzdap stretch of the railway line which the Government of India are considering withdrawing, and which the Persian Government would like to improve in order to encourage trade between Persia [Iran] and India. This part of the file also contains correspondence relating to improvements of the road running between Nok Kundi and Mirjawa.

The second section of the file contains papers dated September 1944 to June 1945 (ff 53-110) and concerns: the British Government’s request to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to remove disused rails at the sidings in Mirjawa so that they might be used elsewhere for military purposes; the construction of a railway from Zahidan [Zahedan] to Kerman; maintenance of the Zahidan to Meshed [Mashhad] road as part of a supply line to China; a minute with multiple enclosures written by the Additional Counsellor at the British Embassy in Tehran, Lieutenant-Colonel Everard Huddleston Gastrell, relating to the Iranian Government’s refusal to allow the North Western Railway to remove rails at Mirjawa for war purposes.

The third section of the file contains papers dated July 1946 to October 1947 (ff 5-52). The papers relate to the Iranian Government’s desire to take over the Zahidan to Mirjawa railway line, and include a report, sent by the Foreign Department of the Government of India to the British Ambassador at Tehran in June 1947, on the Mirjawa to Zahidan railway, covering its history, and political, strategic and economic aspects (ff 9-31).

The file includes a divider, which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.