IOR/L/PS/12/3510

Correspondence and other papers concerning the Persian [Iranian] Government’s renewed desire in 1937 to finalise a treaty of friendship between Britain and Iran (also referred to in the file as the Anglo-Persian Consular Convention). The papers, chiefly exchanged between HM Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Tehran, Horace James Seymour, the Foreign Office, and the India Office, cover: outstanding points remaining to be agreed prior to the signing of any treaty, including the withdrawal of Iran’s claims to Bahrain, Tamb [Greater Tunb] and Abu Musa, and the demarcation of the Perso-Baluch frontier, between Iran and British Baluchistan, now part of Pakistan; the British Government and Government of India’s reluctance to commit to a demarcation of the Perso-Baluch frontier, in part because of the financial implications of such a project; the despatch of an Iranian technical commission between February and May 1938 to recommence a survey of the Perso-Baluch frontier that was originally started in 1932; arrangements for the Government of India’s cooperation with the Iranian survey party, with the support of the Political Agent at Chagai; reports on the Iranian survey party’s activity and progress; a confidential entitled ‘Status of the Islands of Tamb, Little Tamb, Abu Musa and Sirri’ written by John Gilbert Laithwaite of the India Office, and dated 24 August 1928 (ff 45-48); the return of the Iranian survey party to the frontier in late 1938.

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.